OF  msfi^. 


BS24I2 


THE 


LAWS    OF    THE    KINGDOM. 


J.     OSWALD    DYKES,     M.A. 


M^   uv   eivofAts    ©saw   «X>.'    ivvofca;    Xpttrrov. — 1  COR,  IX.  21. 


NEW    YORK: 
ROBERT    CARTER    AND    BROTHERS. 

1873. 


ol'i 


MT7EEAT  AND  GIBB,  EDINBURGH, 
PEINTEES  TO  HER  MAJESTT's  STATIONERT  OmCE. 


NOTE. 

These  pages  are  designed  to  form  a  continuation  to  a  small  work 
-ecently  published  on  *  The  Beatitudes  of  the  Kingdom.  '  It  is 
proposed  to  devote  a  third  volume  to  the  treatment,  in  similar  style, 
f  the  rest  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 


CONTENTS. 


P  A  K  T     I. 

Relation  of  the  New  Law  to  the  Old. 

general  peinciple  :  fulfilment,  not  destruction, 
first  illustration  :  sixth  commandment, 
§econd  illustration  :  seventh  commandment, 
third  illustration  :  oaths,        .... 
fourth  illustration  :  lex  talionis, 
fifth  illustration  :  who  is  my  neighbour  ?    . 


PAGE 
1 

21 

43 

63 

85 
109 


PART     II. 

The  Law  of  Secrecy  in  Religion. 

THE   principle  :    before   god,    not   MEN, 
FIRST   application  :    TO   ALMSGIVING,      , 
SECOND   APPLICATION  :    TO    PRAYER, 
EXCURSUS  :     THE   MODEL   PRAYER, 
THIRD   APPLICATION  :    TO    FASTING, 


133 
151 
173 
193 
217 


PAKT  I. 

EELATION  OF  THE  NEW  LAW 
TO  THE  OLD. 


THE  GENEEAL  PEmCIPLE : 
EULFILMENT,  NOT  DESTEUCTIOK 


Think  not  that  I  am  come  to  destroy  the  law  or  the  pro- 
phets :  I  am  not  come  to  destroy,  hut  to  fidjil.  For  verily  I 
say  unto  you,  Till  heaven  and  earth  pass,  one  jot  or  one  tittle 
shall  in  no  wise  pass  from  the  law  till  all  he  fulfilled.  Who- 
soever, therefore,  shall  hreak  one  of  these  least  commandments, 
and  shall  teach  men  so,  he  shall  he  called  the  least  in  the  king- 
dom of  heaven;  hut  whosoever  shall  do  and  teach  them,  the 
same  shall  he  called  great  in  the  kingdom,  of  heaven.  For  I 
say  unto  you,  That  except  your  righteousness  shall  exceed  the 
righteousness  of  the  scribes  and  Pharisees,  ye  shall  in  no  case 
enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven. — Matt,  v,  17-20. 

Cf.  Luke  xvi.  17  :  It  is  easier  for  heaven  and  earth  to  pass 
than  one  tittle  of  the  law  to  fail. 


THE  GENERAL  PRINCIPLE  : 
FULFILMENT,  NOT  DESTRUCTION. 


IN  the  eight  Beatitudes  of  the  Kingdom  with     part  l 
which  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  opens,  the    general 
spiritual  King  has  defined  who  they  are  whom  He  ^^^^^^'^^^^• 
numbers  among  His  subjects.    Of  aU  who  bear  this 
blessed  character  He  says, '  Of  such  is  the  kingdom  Matt.  v.  3, 
of  heaven.'     But  the  bulk  of  this  inauc^ural  address 

o 

of  our  Lord  is  legislation.  Its  main  design  was 
to  lay  down  the  constitutional  principles  or  legal 
axioms  of  His  spiritual  kingdom.  To  this  design 
a  description  of  its  blessed  subjects  could  be 
only  preliminary.  Accordingly,  the  beatitudes 
are  followed  up  by  a  series  of  legislative  para- 
graphs, which,  under  several  heads,  cover  the 
main  duties  of  the  citizen  in  God's  new  or 
Christian  kingdom. 

Of  these  legislative  sections,  the  first  and  most  Matt.  v. 
important  is  that  Avhich  fills  the  remainder  of  St. 
Matthew's  fifth  chapter.      It  takes  its  form  from 
the  necessity   under    which  this  new  Legislator 
found  Himself  to  define  His  relation  to  the  pre- 

3 


4  Tlie  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.     ceding  legislation  of  His  nation.     Jesus  did  not 
GENERAL    begin,  no  legislator  ever  does  begin,  to  write  His 


PRINCIPLE. 


law,  as  it  were,  on  clean  paper.  It  is  impossible 
for  any  religious  reformer  or  founder  to  sweep  tlie 
ground  quite  clear  of  all  previous  systems,  or  to 
begin  to  build  up  a  system  of  his  own  without  re- 
spect to  his  predecessors'  work.  Jesus  found  the 
Jewish  people  what  the  whole  previous  history  of 
their  fathers  had  made  them  ;  with  a  definite  and 
venerable  code  of  laws,  and  a  very  minute  and 
pompous  liturgy  of  sacrifice  and  praise.  It  was 
impossible  not  to  begin  by  defining  how^  His  new 
kingdom  stood  related  to  the  ancient  theocracy 
of  Moses  and  the  prophets.  He  spoke  as  a 
Hebrew  prophet  to  a  Hebrew  audience ;  and  the 
very  first  question  which  met  Him,  or  at  least 
which  lay  unexpressed  in  the  thoughts  of  every 
hearer,  was  this  :  You  say  you  are  come  a  teacher 
sent  by  God  to  set  up  among  us  a  new  kingdom. 
Other  teachers  we  have  had  from  God,  who  in 
our  fathers'  days,  from  Moses  to  Malachi,  did  set 
up  our  kingdom  and  gave  us  laws  in  abundance. 
What  must  we  understand  you  to  make  of  all 
this  former  revelation  and  these  existing  laws  ? 

To  this  question  there  was  the  more  need  to 
give  an  immediate  and  explicit  answer,  because 
already  His  audience  was  divided  by  a  false  con- 


Fulfilment,  not  Destruction. 

ception  on  the  point.  It  was  rumoured,  and  part  i. 
several  things  gave  colour  to  the  rumour,  that  general 
tlie  new  Prophet's  teaching  was  essentially  de- 
structive— hostile  to,  and  meant  to  subvert,  the 
good  old  system  of  law  and  rite  delivered  to  the 
fathers  through  the  hand  of  Moses.  Two  parties 
in  the  nation  caught  at  this  notion  ;  the  one  in 
hope,  the  other  in  fear.  While  the  mass  of  the 
common  people,  busy  with  field  labour  or  with 
trade,  were  not  ill-pleased  to  hear  that  the  strict 
discipline  and  intolerably  minute  rubrics  of  the 
old  law  were  to  be  relaxed ;  a  smaller  section, 
whose  professional  importance  and  reputation  for 
sanctity  rested  mainly  on  their  exceptional  ob- 
servance of  legal  punctilio,  resented  the  infrac- 
tion of  the  written  code,  even  in  a  'jot  or  tittle,' 
as  sacrilege  or  apostasy.  It  was  against  this 
two-faced  misconception  Jesus  had  to  guard  His 
own  position ;  and  it  was  this  which  determined 
the  two-faced  form  of  His  main  statement : 

'  Think  not  that  I  am  come  to  destroy  the  law 
or  the  prophets  ; 

'  I  am  not  come  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil.'  Ver.  17. 

These  very  weighty  words,  which  condense  for  us 
this  whole  section  of  the  discourse,  are  a  protest, 
on  the  one  side,  against  the  blind  spirit  of  revolt, 
the   radical  reaction,    whose   impulse   is   to  tear 


6 


TliG  Leans  of  the  Kingdom. 


PART  I.     itself  loose  from  all  that  went  before,  and  to  cle- 
GBNERAL    stpoj  the  good  along  with  the  evil  in  that  which 

PRINCIPLE.      . 

IS ;  on  the  other  side,  against  the  rigid  unpro- 
gressive  conservatism,  which  in  its  idolatry  of  the 
past  would  arrest  development,  and  which  refuses 
to  '  fulfil '  the  spirit  of  existing  systems  by  a  wise 
superseding  of  their  form.  Though  these  words 
were  framed  to  meet  the  immediate  prejudices  of 
a  Jewish  audience,  they  enclose  the  golden  rule 
of  all  progress.  To  the  philosophic  statesman 
and  to  the  religious  reformer  of  every  generation, 
the  best  recommendation  of  what  is  new  will 
always  be  that  it  comes  not  to  destroy  the  old, 
but  to  fulfil  it ;  to  understand  its  spirit,  to  realize 
its  purpose,  to  carry  forward  its  work,  and  to 
make  every  change  an  unfolding  into  higher 
power  of  whatever  truth  or  goodness  had  been 
the  living  soul  of  systems  which,  through  lapse 
Heb.  viii.  13.  of  time,  are  now  grown  old  and  '  ready  to  vanish 
away.' 


It  was  through  no  accident  that  Jesus  Christ 
held  towards  the  Hebrew  Old  Testament  this 
relation  of  a  fulfiller,  any  more  than  it  was  by 
an  accident  that  He  Himself  was  born  a  Jew. 
Judaism  was  the  divine  preparative  for  Chris- 
tianity.     From  the  call  of  Abram  to  the  coming 


Fulfilment,  not  Destruction.  7 

of  Christ  is  one  unbroken  historical  process,  and  paet  i. 
the  special  function  of  the  elect  people  was  to  general 
give  birth  to  the  new  kingdom.  It  was  out 
of  the  womb  of  Judaism,  and  only  out  of  it, 
that,  as  its  lawful  offspring,  Christianity  could  John  iv.  22. 
come.  I  take  for  granted,  that  when  our  Lord 
spoke  of  '  the  law  and  the  j)rophets,'  He  used  a 
current  phrase  for  the  entire  sacred  literature 
which  held  the  Hebrew  economy  of  revelation. 
The  writings,  of  course,  are  only  of  value  as 
embodying  a  religion  or  system  of  truth  and  duty ; 
and  the  division  into  '  law  '  and  '  prophets  '  cor- 
responds to  the  two  sides  of  the  Hebrew  religion 
which  were  most  characteristic  of  it :  I  mean  its 
aspect  of  command  or  literal  injunction,  most  felt 
by  the  least  spiritual ;  and  its  aspect  of  promise 
or  underlying  hope,  best  seen  by  the  most  spiritual. 
Of  these,  the  former  certainly  found  its  chief 
utterance  in  the  Mosaic  Pentateuch,  the  latter  in 
the  later  prophetic  books.  But  of  the  entire 
system  from  first  to  last,  this  was  the  great 
peculiarity,  that  while,  in  the  words  of  a  New 
Testament  writer,  '  the  law  made  nothing  perfect,  Heb.  vii.  19. 
there  was  still  the  bringing  in  of  a  better  hope.'  ^ 

'  Tliis  is  in  substance  Bleek's  rendering  {Hehraerhrief,  ii.  350), 
slightly  but  not  materially  different  from  the  marginal  reading 
in  our  Authorized  Version. 


The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 


PART  I.  Imperfection  was  its  first  mark,  and  that  attached 
GENERAL  itsclf  mainly  to  '  the  law  : '  it  perfected  nothing. 
Preparation  was  its  second,  and  belonged  more 
to  '  the  prophets  : '  there  was  the  bringing  in  of 
a  better  hope.  Manifestly,  these  two  are  so 
connected,  that  it  conld  not  help  being  imper- 
fect, just  because  it  was  preparatory.  From 
this  point  it  becomes  easy  to  answer  the 
vexed  question  about  the  completeness  or  per- 
fection of  the  Old  Testament  system.  Looked 
at  in  the  light  of  its  end,  in  view  of  that  for  the 
sake  of  which  it  existed,  and  towards  which  it 
led  the  world,  it  will  seem,  on  any  candid  and 
liberal  construction,  to  be  a  worthy  product  of 
His  wisdom  Who  designed  it ;  fit  for  its  work, 
and  completely  answering  the  design  of  His 
gracious  providence.  But  if  any  one  will  choose 
to  examine  its  parts  out  of  all  relation  to  that 
which  followed  it,  and  to  judge  of  them  by  a 
perfectly  independent  standard,  it  will  not  be 
hard  to  prove  it  in  many  ways  faulty,  defective, 
and  amiss.  It  cannot  help  being  so.  That 
which  is  only  meant  to  introduce  something  else 
Cf.  Heb.  xi.  and   better,  without   which   it   cannot   be  made 

40. 

perfect,  must  of  course  look  imperfect,  and  be 
imperfect,  so  long  as  it  stands  alone.  It  may  be 
as  sfood  as  it  can   be  for  the  time  and  for  its 


PEINCIPLE 


Fulfilment,  not  Destruction.  9 

purpose  ;  but  it  must  be  less  good  and  less  entire  part  i. 
than  the  '  better  thing '  for  which  it  waits.  It  is  general 
idle,  therefore,  to  claim  for  the  Old  Testament 
such  perfection  as  we  claim  for  the  ]S"ew ;  or 
labour  to  explain  away  the  inferiority  of  Judaism 
to  Christianity.  The  Old  stood  in  need,  says 
Jesus,  of  fulfilment.  Look  at  the  Law  apart  from 
the  Gospel :  what  is  it  ?  An  imperfect  code  ;  a 
handful  of  moral  enactments,  wdiich  cover  only  a 
fragment  of  human  life,  coupled  with  arbitrary 
regulations  about  food  and  dress,  and  the  colour 
and  size  of  buildings,  and  the  ritual  of  religious 
ceremony,  which  could  only  be  kept  in  one  very 
small  corner  of  Syria,  and  which  even  there  look 
absolutely  puerile  in  themselves.  The  Levitical 
code,  unfulfilled,  is  a  fragment,  shapeless,  and 
without  consistent  meaning.  Fulfilled  in  Chris- 
tianity, it  falls  into  its  place ;  it  dovetails  in  with 
its  complement;  it  recovers  its  rationale  ;  it  grows 
intelligible.  The  whole  Law,  therefore,  was  in  a 
sense  prophetic ;  it  foretold  its  fulfilment,  for  it 
craved  it.  The  Ten  Words  craved  a  more  spiritual 
interpretation,  and  the  obedience  which  appeared 
impossible.  The  liturgy  craved  to  be  read  in  the 
light  of  a  spiritual  worship  of  atonement,  offered 
for  men  by  a  more  effectual  Priest,  in  the  real 
purity,  not  of  white  linen,  but  of  a  clean  heart. 


10 


TJie  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 


PART  I.  The  civil  institutes  of  the  little  Shemitic  com- 
GENERAL  iiionwealtli  meant  little  for  the  earth,  if  there 
never  was  to  he  any  wide  spiritual  kingdom  of 
divine  rule  over  all  nations  and  the  souls  of  all 
men.  In  short,  the  whole  Hebrew  system  stood 
erect,  with  a  finger  pointing  forward,  as  the  guide 
and  tutor  of  earlier  ages  to  lead  men's  eyes  on- 
ward to  the  world's  better  hope.  Fulfilment  was 
that  mighty  something  for  which  it  waited,  to  be 
the  answer  of  its  riddles,  the  supply  of  its  wants, 
the  substance  of  its  symbols,  the  fact  filling  out 
its  forms.  That  something  was  Jesus.  When  you 
know  how  much  it  means,  and  how  louGf  mankind 
had  been  kept  waiting  for  it,  there  is  sublimity 
in  the  composure  with  which  this  simple  preacher 
of  Galilee  sets  Himself  forth  as  the  Fulfiller :  '  I 
am  not  come  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil.' 

On  the  other  hand,  it  must  not  be  forc^otten 
that  all  fulfilment  of  an  imperfect  by  a  more  per- 
fect stage  of  development  involves  what  is  a  kind 
of  destruction.  In  so  far  as  the  Old  Testament 
was  preparative  of  the  N'ew,  it  was  temporary  or 
destructible.  It  provided  a  perishable  envelope 
for  truth,  w^hich  was  as  yet  in  the  germ  only  ;  it 
threw  athwart   the  world's   path    shadows    from 

Heb.  X.  1,  .  .      ^ 

cf.  ix.  11.      '  good  things  to   come  ; '   it  created  a  machinery 

Cf.  1  Cor.  . 

xiii.  11.        for  human  education  which  must  pass  away  like 


Fulfilment,  not  Destruction.  11 

childish  things.  Much  about  it,  therefore,  was  part  i. 
destroyed  by  being  fulfilled.  As  the  shell  general 
breaks  when  the  bird  is  hatched  ;  as  the  sheath 
withers  when  the  bud  bursts  into  leaf ;  as  the 
rough  sketch  is  done  with  when  the  picture  is 
finished ;  as  the  toys  of  boyhood  are  laid  by  in 
adolescence ;  as,  in  short,  whatever  is  only  pre- 
paratory is  evanescent,  and  perishes  in  the  hour 
of  maturity  :  so  it  was  inevitable,  that  whatever 
portions  of  the  old  economy  were  educational  and 
introductory,  should  fall  off  when  the  Fulfiller 
came.  This  destruction  of  outer  form  accom- 
panies every  rmfolding  of  truth.  Is^othing  lives 
and  abides  save  that  eternal  Word  of  God,  Who 
is  the  personal  and  perfect  utterance  of  God  Him- 
self ;  every  word  of  man  in  which  for  a  time  this 
Word  of  God  is  more  or  less  fully  uttered,  like 
every  flower  of  grass  in  which  a  little  of  the  l  Pet.  i.  24, 
divine  may  be  discerned,  must  wither  and  pass. 
It  is  a  thing  never  to  be  overlooked,  that  truth  is 
more  than  any  form  or  expression  of  truth  we 
know.  God  is  greater  than  His  own  revelation 
of  Himself.  As  the  conceptions  of  men  regard- 
ing the  Father  and  His  relations  to  the  world  in 
His  Son,  have  otowu  stronsjer  and  clearer,  so  have 
they  found  for  themselves  new  vehicles  of  utter- 
ance and  new  symbols  to  reflect  them.      Truth 


1 2  The  Laivs  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.     may  have   many  modes   of  exhibition ;   each   of 

GENERAL    them  it  shivers  in  succession,  as  a  healthy  oak- 

shoot  the  pot  which  holds  it.     Shaking  must  follow 

shaking,  till  all  that  is  of  the  earth  be  shaken 

Heb.  xii.  27.  off ;  then  shall  remain  only  that  which  cannot 
be  shaken.  Men's  thoudits  chano-e  and  widen  : 
but  He  abides,  Who  is  God's  perfect  Word,  '  the 

Heb.  xiii.  8.  Same  yesterday,  and  to-day,  and  for  ever.'  In 
Himself,  Christ  Jesus  gathers  up  every  broken 
light  of  truth,  each  'jot  or  tittle '  of  true  goodness, 
which  ever  found  expression  in  decalogue  w^ords 
or  verse  of  prophet,  or  in  any  verse  or  word  of 
any  man  ;  and  in  Him  they  find  their  just  place 
and  supreme  fulfilment :  for  in  Him  are  hid  all 

Col.  ii.  3.      these  treasures  of  wdsdom  and  knowledge. 

This  great  word  of  the  seventeenth  verse  is  not 
to  be  read  in  any  sense  narrower  than  the  widest 
which  it  will  bear.  It  is  as  true  of  the  pro]3hets 
as  of  the  law,  that  Jesus  w^as  not  their  destroyer, 
but  their  fulfiller.  It  is  true  of  all  antecedent 
systems  and  doctrines  which  had  in  them  the 
least  soul  of  goodness  or  of  truth,  no  less  than  of 
Mosaism,  that  the  Son  of  God  came  to  '  fulfil.' 
For,  in  fact,  it  belongs  to  the  divine  nature  as 
discovered  to  us  in  His  character,  that  He  hath  no 
love  to  destroy.     God  aims  ever  at  fostering  what 


Fulfilment,  not  Destruction.  13 

is  good,  unfolding  what  is  involved,  ripening  what  part  i. 
is  immature.  Throughout  physical  processes,  as  general 
in  the  rearing  of  spiritual  manhood,  we  trace  the 
Divine  Hand  at  this  loving  task  ;  making  the 
most  of  everything,  educing  good  out  of  ill, 
causing  life  to  grow  from  the  ashes  of  dead  life, 
and  finding  in  each  lower  or  evanescent  form  of 
existence  a  step  by  which  to  rise  to  something 
nobler.  Is  not  this  characteristic  of  His  working. 
Whose  presence  w^e  detect  throughout  the  universe, 
that,  where  He  comes.  He  comes  not  to  destroy, 
but  to  fulfil.  But  although,  as  His  manner  was, 
our  great  Teacher  dropped  a  word  so  wide  and 
endless  in  its  truth  as  this  word  must  be  taken 
to  be,  yet  its  immediate  application  was  narrowed 
in  the  next  following  sentence  to  the  Mosaic  law,  Vers.  18-20. 
and  especially  to  its  ethical  element.  Jesus  was 
about  to  lay  down  the  moral  duties  of  citizens  in 
His  heavenly  kingdom  ;  and  what  He  was  at  pre- 
sent concerned  to  show,  was  that  His  new  code 
of  duty  was  not  destructive  of  the  traditional 
Hebrew  code,  but  a  fulfilment  of  it.  The  law  of 
Moses  was  to  the  Jews  whom  He  addressed  the 
highest  expression  which  they  knew  of  the  eternal 
righteousness  of  Jehovah  as  a  rule  for  man's 
behaviour.  Were  these  commandments  to  be 
broken  or  destroyed  by  the  legislation  of  the  new 


14 


TJie  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 


Ex.  XX.- 
xxiii. 
Deut.  xxi 

XXV. 


PAKT  I.     kingdom  ?     Jesus  answers,  at  this  point,   as   at 
GENERAL    evciy   point :    '  No,   not    broken,   but   kept ;  not 
PRINCIPLE.   ^ggt^.Qygj^  13^1-  fulfilled!' 

The  illustrations  which  Jesus  goes  on  to  ac- 
cumulate in  the  rest  of  this  chapter,  five  in 
number,  will  give  us  ample  opportunity  to  exa- 
mine His  mode  of  dealins:?  with  the  Hebrew  law. 
But  before  we  descend  to  any  of  these  particulars, 
this  seems  the  place  to  try  if  we  can  gather  His 
general  principle  of  treatment. 
Ex.  XX.  2-17.  The  moral  law  of  Israel,  both  as  summarized 
in  the  decalogue,  and  as  amplified  by  many  minute 
statutes  in  Exodus  and  Deuteronomy,  was  a  law 
not  of  principles  so  much  as  of  instances  :  that 
is,  it  abstained  as  a  rule  from  classifying  actions 
under  wide  ethical  categories,  and  contented  itself 
with  specifying  particular  acts.  It  forbade  in- 
dividual sins  ;  it  commanded  individual  duties. 
In  its  form  it  was  a  code  of  details,  of  prescrip- 
tions for  external  conduct.  It  would  lead  me 
too  far  aside  to  ask  how  this  external  form  of  the 
law  was  rendered  needful  by  its  educational  pur- 
Gal,  iii.  24,  pose,  on  the  one  hand,  as  a  '  pedagogue '  to  con- 
duct the  race  to  Christ ;  or,  on  the  other,  by  the 
fact  that  it  was  less  a  guide  to  personal  virtue 
than  the  statute-book  of  a  civil  society,  the  public 
law  of  a  commonwealth.      I  only  note  the  fact 


Greek. 


PRINCIPLE. 


Fulfilment,  not  Destruction.  15 

that  it  did  prohibit  this  and  that  offence,  pre-  part  i. 
scribe  this  and  that  behaviour,  and  prohibited  far  general 
more  than  it  prescribed.  All  the  while,  the  single 
deep-lying  principle  of  evil  in  the  human  heart, 
from  which  every  form  of  wrong-doing  takes  its  rise, 
as  well  as  the  one  supreme  condition  of  the  heart 
which  is  the  spring  of  virtues,  were  left  almost 
unnoticed.^  Selfishness  in  the  heart  was  that 
which  made  each  transgression  of  law  to  be  a  sin  ; 
love,  what  made  an  act  of  obedience  to  be  a  virtue. 
But  of  love  and  selfishness  the  law  had  little  to 
say.  The  real  principles  of  action,  which  in  the 
last  resort  make  a  ri^^ht  act  to  be  right,  and  a 
wrong  act  wrong,  lay  beneath  the  surface  of  a 
statute  book  which  bristled  in  every  paragraph 
with  Thou-shalts  and  Thou-shalt-nots.  However 
explicable  such  a  phenomenon  may  be  when  we 
knov/  its  reason,  and  its  adaptation  to  the  wants 
of  the  Hebrews,  it  was  plainly  an  imperfection, 
one.  of  those  defects  which  called  for  fulfilment. 
It  even  constituted  a  snare  for  shallow  natures  ;  it 
almost  tempted  people  into  a  pharisaic  righteous- 
ness. The  outward  letter  of  the  law  could  be  so 
easily  kept ;  and  the  law  was  nearly  all  outward 

^  Not  altogether  ;  as  such  passages  as  our  Lord  (in  Matt. 
xxii.  37-40,  and  parallel  passages)  cites  from  Lev.  xix.  18, 
Deut.  vi.  5,  and  x.  12,  suffice  to  show. 


16 


The  Laios  of  the  Kingdom. 


PART  I. 


GENERAL 
PRINCIPLE. 


letter.  How  could  weak  and  tempted  men,  with 
undeveloped  consciences,  be  expected  to  read 
beneath  the  words  of  the  decalogue,  or  be  harder 
on  themselves  than  God  appeared  to  be,  or  see 
that  a  law  was  not  really  kept  in  any  sufficient 
sense  when  its  terms  were  formally  observed,  and 
its  spirit  secretly  defied  ?  It  is  true  that  in  rude 
times,  a  law  which  stayed  the  hand  of  violence 
and  shut  the  mouth  of  perjury  might  do  much  to 
keep  society  sweet ;  but  it  could  hardly  go  very 
far  towards  teaching  rude  men  the  evil  of  malice 
or  the  beauty  of  truth.  Nay,  statutes  of  this 
sort  actually  proved  to  be  the  occasion  of  a  per- 
nicious distinction  betwixt  righteousness  and 
goodness.  If  it  was  possible  for  a  bad  man  to 
keep  within  the  terms  of  a  statute,  the  eternal 
distinction  between  goodness  and  badness  would 
seem  rather  to  be  obscured  than  insisted  on. 
Besides,  the  chance  that  a  law  is  long  observed 
depends  on  the  absence  of  any  general  desire  to 
break  it ;  a  decalogue,  therefore,  which  could  not 
stanch  evil  passion  at  its  source  proved  a  weak 
embankment  against  its  overflow.  So  it  came  to 
pass,  that  in  aU  later  and  worse  times  of  Hebrew 
history,  men's  ideas  of  righteousness  retreated 
within  those  mere  rules  of  ceremonial  which  any- 
body could  keep,  and  the  bare  prohibition  against 


PRINCIPLE. 


Fulfilment,  not  Destruction.  17 

acts  of  murder,  or  theft,  or  adultery,  proved  no  re-      part  i. 
straint  at  all  on  violence,  knavery,  and  lewdness,      general 

It  is  plain  that  laws  of  this  sort  never  could 
be  '  fulfilled/  that  is,  filled  full  with  their  own 
proper  meaning  and  force,  till  some  one  should 
draw  forth  to  light  the  spiritual,  far-reaching  prin- 
ciple of  morals  which  underlay  them,  and  should 
show  men  that  in  that,  not  in  the  outward  letter, 
lay  their   real   ethical  value  as  a  transcript  of 
God's  own  character.     To  draw  out  of  each  its 
moral  principle,  and  then  to  run  all  these  moral 
principles   up   into  one  royal  law  of  love,  was 
much.      To   postulate  such  a  royal  law  in  the 
heart,  and  then  run  it  down  through  the  details 
of  life  and  show  how  it  would  secure  the  fulfil- 
ment, not  only  of  each  '  jot  and  tittle '  of  com- 
manded duty,  but  of  ten  thousand  duties,  which 
no  statute  book  could  specify ;  this  was  more. 
Something  like  this,  other  men  besides  and  be- 
fore Jesus  had  in  substance  attempted.     Hebrew 
prophets  and  heathen  philosophers  had  alike  dis- 
covered that  virtue  is  not  so  much  the  observance 
of  a  code,  as  the  living  growth  of  a  loving  heart. 
One  thing  immeasurably  greater  remained  to  be 
done,  essayed  by  neither  philosopher  nor  prophet : 
to  exhibit  in  practice  a  complete  fulfilment  of  all 
laws  through  the  possession  of  perfect  love,  and 

B 


1 8  TfiG  Laivs  of  the  Kingdom. 

TART  I.  plant  such  love  in  others'  hearts,  that  they  too 
GENERAL  shall  llve  out  righteous  lives  in  obedience  to  no 
prescriptions,  but  under  the  natural  impulses  of 
a  regenerated  nature.  To  expound  the  law  is 
less  than  to  keep  it ;  to  keep  it,  less  perhaps 
than  give  others  power  to  keep  it  too.  In  all 
three  ways  is  Jesus  the  only  Fulfiller  and  '  the 
Eom.  X.  4.  end  of  the  law.' 

To  separate  Jesus  the  moral  teacher,  from 
Jesus  the  example  and  the  saviour,  of  men,  is  to 
misunderstand  Him.  If,  as  He  sits  and  expounds 
His  nation's  laws  upon  the  hill,  you  see  in  Him  no 
more  than  a  master  of  duty,  a  Hebrew  moralist 
more  advanced  than  Moses,  more  spiritual  than 
Solomon,  more  practical  than  Isaiah ;  you  will 
utterly  fail  to  understand  the  power  which  this 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  has  wielded.  To  tell  us, 
as  He  does,  that  the  spirit  of  even  the  decalogue 
lies  in  a  right  love  for  God,  and  a  love  for  all 
men,  like  God's  own  love  for  them,  and  that 
therefore  the  Old  Testament  code  itself  is  fit, 
when  you  understand  it,  to  become  a  new  code 
for  the  kingdom  of  God,  will  not  go  far  of  itself 
to  make  our  world  a  good  world,  ^o ;  but  add 
Phil.  ii.  6-8.  Only  this,  that  the  Speaker  is  God  Himself  under 
His-  own  law,  fulfilling  in  the  guise  of  a  servant 
the  duties  which  He  lays  on  us.      This  divine 


Fulfilment,  not  Destruction.  19 

King  is  King  because  He  is  tlie  first  of  sitbjects,      part  r. 
and  Himself  pays  absolute  respect  to  His  own      general 
statutes.     He  is  a  Jew,  circumcised  to  keep  the    ^^^^^^^^^^• 
whole  law.     He  is  more — the  Son  of  God,  Whose 
accepted  business  it  is  to  fulfil  all  rioiiteousness.  Cf.  Luke  ii. 

49  •  c.  Matt. 

So  He  walks  in  all  outward  ordinances  of  Mosaism  iii.'i.5. 
blameless ;  with  an  observance  of  each  '  jot  and 
tittle '  of  ceremonial  and  oiyil  duty  more  irre- 
proachable than  scribe  or  Pharisee.  Yet  how  in- 
finitely His  righteousness  exceeds  the  standard 
of  the  most  punctilious  !  To  Him  the  divine 
law  is  a  copy  of  His  Father's  character  ;  and 
obedience  to  law  is  just  a  son's  tribute  of  love  to 
his  father.  Eising,  therefore,  from  the  letter  of 
law  to  the  mind  of  the  paternal  Lawgiver,  this 
Son  kept  the  commandments  in  their  spiritual 
meaning,  obeyed  with  the  freedom  of  choice,  and 
served  in  the  spontaneity  of  love.  He  Himself 
it  was  Who  practically  translated  the  old  legis- 
lation into  the  new.  Who  so  fulfilled  the  letter 
as  to  turn  it  into  spirit,  and  Who,  w^hile  faithful 
to  '  carnal  ordinances,'  liberated  the  principle  of 
righteousness,  which  is  love,  from  its  fleshly 
envelope,  and  made  it  the  principle  of  a  new 
kincjdom  of  God.  His  own  life  is  the  meetino-- 
point  of  two  economies ;  the  practical  fulfilment 
of  the  Old  Testament,  its  practical  elevation  into 


2  0  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.     a  New  Testament.     The  law  was  never  so  entirely 

GENERAL     '  magnified '  as  when  God's  Son  showed  that,  to 

PRINCIPLE.    ^       ^|-  ^g  j^  ought  to  be  kept,  meant  to  be  per- 

Isa.  xlii.  21.  ^  ^  ^  .  . 

Matt.  V.  48.  feet  as  God  is  perfect ;  and  by  so  keeping  it, 
realized  in  manhood  the  perfection  of  the  God- 
head. 

By  expounding  its  spirit,  Jesus  fulfilled  the 
law  in  its  inherent  and  everlasting  force  as  a  law 
of  heart  and  motive. 

By  keeping  the  law  in  spirit  as  well  as  letter 
to  its  last  fibre  of  obligation,  Jesus  fulfilled  it  as 
a  condition  of  divine  favour  and  everlasting  life. 

By  enabling  His  brethren  to  love  the  heavenly 
Father  Who  gave  it,  Jesus  fulfils  it  as  the  rule  of 
life  in  all  believing  men. 

'  I  am  not  come  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil.' 


riEST  ILLUSTEATION : 
THE     SIXTH     COMMANDMENT. 


21 


Ye  have  heard  that  it  was  said  by  them  of  old  time,  '  Thou 
shalt  not  kill;  and,  ichosoever  shall  kill  shall  be  in  danger  of 
the  judgment :'  but  I  say  unto  you,  That  whosoever  is  angry 
with  his  brother  without  a  cause  shall  be  in  danger  of  the 
judgment;  and  ivhosoever  shall  say  to  his  brother,  *"  Raca,' 
shall  be  in  danger  of  the  council ;  but  whosoever  shall  say, 
'  Thou  fool,''  shall  be  in  danger  of  hell-fire.  Therefore,  if  thou 
bring  thy  gift  to  the  altar,  and  there  rememberest  that  thy 
brother  hath  aught  against  thee ;  leave  there  thy  gift  before  the 
altar,  and  go  thy  way ;  first  be  reconciled  to  thy  brother,  and 
then  come  and  offer  thy  gift.  Agree  with  thine  adversary 
quickly,  ivhiles  thou  art  in  the  way  with  him ;  lest  at  any  time 
thy  adversary  deliver  thee  to  the  judge,  and  the  judge  deliver 
thee  to  the  officer,  and  thou  be  cast  into  prison.  Verily  I  say 
unto  thee,  Thou  shalt  by  no  means  come  out  thence  till  thou  hast 
paid  the  uttermost  farthing.— Matt.  v.  21-26. 


22 


THE   SIXTH   COMMANDMENT. 


I 


PEOCEED  to  consider  tlie  first  of  those  five      part  i. 
examples  by  wliicli  our  Lord  at  once  defines        first 


and  illustrates  the  relation  of  His  New  Testament 
leoislation  to  that  of  the  Hebrews.  That  rela- 
tion,  as  we  have  seen,  is  not  destruction,  but  ful- 
filment. The  moral  law  of  Moses,  like  every 
other  part  of  the  Old  Testament  system,  held  in 
germ  the  perfect  law  of  Cliristian  ethics ;  but  it 
enclosed  that  germ  within  a  temporary  envelope 
of  external  civil  statutes.  The  work  of  the  Eul- 
filler  must  therefore  be  to  search  for  the  spirit  of 
the  law  beneath  its  details,  and  to  set  free  from  the 
mere  letter  of  it  those  moral  principles  on  which 
it  rested.  In  doing  this,  Jesus  struck  at  two 
errors,  which,  though  opposed,  did  equally  '  break  cf.  ver.  19. 
these  commandments,  and  taught  men  to  break 
them:'  the  error  of  popular  antinomianism ;  and 
the  error  of  pharisaic  legality. 

The  sixth  commandment  of  the  decalogue,  as  Ex.  xx.  13. 
graven  by  God's  finger  on  the  granite  of  Horeb, 
stood  in  the  brief  and  pungent  style  of  that  code 

23 


24  The  Laws  of  the,  Kingdom. 

PART  r.       thus  :  '  Thou  shalt  not  kill.'       If  you  approach 
FIRST       this  prohibition  in  the  temper  of  a  jurist,  who 

ILLUSTRATION  •        •■     .i  i  r-         ^i      "  .       ^• 

sees  no  more  m  it  than  a  law  lor  the  protection 
of  society  against  criminal  violence  to  the  person, 
you  will  not  find  it  a  hard  command  to  keep. 
Hold  your  hand  from  bloodshed,  and  you  are 
within  the  law.  This  juristic  style  of  interpreta- 
tion, however,  will  not  bear  to  be  carried  into  the 
province  of  morals.  Eead  the  word  of  God  defin- 
ing human  duty  as  you  would  a  police  regulation, 
and  instantly  you  create  a  false  morality;  you 
breed  self-righteous  moralists.  If  what  God  for- 
bids on  this  branch  of  conduct  is  no  more  than 
such  acts  of  violence  as  can  be  dealt  with  by  the 
sentence  of  a  court  of  justice ;  then  we  may  feel 
very  safe  and  righteous,  who  never  lifted  our 
hand  to  slay,  and  may  be  as  severe  as  we  please 
on  our  unhappy  brother  who  has  lifted  his.  Such 
was  the  line  of  interpretation  adopted  by  the 
Jewish  expositors,  who  appended  to  the  sixth 
commandment  the  rider  quoted  by  our  Lord. 
Addressing  the  people,  who,  in  an  age  of  few 
books,  were  indebted  for  their  knowledge  of  Scrip- 
ture to  the  public  reading  of  it  with  rabbinical 
glosses  in  the  synagogue.  He  said  :  '  Ye  have  heard 
that  it  was  said  by  [or  to]  them  of  old  time. 
Thou   shalt  not  kill;    and  whosoever  shall  kill 


Tlie  Sixth  Commandment.  25 

shall   be  in  danger  of  the  judgment ; '  that   is,      part  i. 
shall  be  liable  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the   local       first 
bench  of  magistrates,  who  in  each  Jewish  town 
had  the  power  of  capital  punishment. 

But  you  may  approach  the  sixth  command- 
ment in  another  spirit,  and  find  a  very  different 
interpretation  possible.  Let  it  be  viewed  as  em- 
bodying a  moral  principle  for  the  regulation  of 
the  individual  life;  let  conscience  face  it  in  an 
earnest  and  religious  mood,  to  find  out  what  it 
has  to  tell  of  God's  character,  and  how  He  would 
order  the  relation  of  man  to  his  fellow-man  :  then 
the  words  will  be  felt  to  cover  by  implication  far 
more  than  meets  the  ear.  Morality  is  an  affair,! 
not  of  overt  act,  but  of  motive.  The  judgment  of  ' 
God  searches  the  heart ;  and  the  earnest  or  devout 
interpreter  will  ask,  in  front  of  a  law  like  this. 
What  is  that  state  of  the  criminal  which  makes 
killing  a  crime  ?  No  Jew  could  help  seeing 
that  the  mere  act  of  taking  life  was  not  always 
murder.  The  Mosaic  system  even  recognised 
the  old  vendetta,  or  feud-ven^eance, — swift,  red-  Ex.  xxi. 

^  ^     12-14 ;  c. 

handed  retaliation  by  a  next-of-kin, — though  it  Josh.  xx. 
laboured  to  moderate  the  barbarism  of  that  cus- 
tom.    The  voice  of  God  certainly  had  sealed  with 
express  sanction  every  writ  for  the  legal  execu- 
tion of  criminals ;  and  the  law  punished  a  num- 


2  6  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

TART  I.  ber  of  crimes  with  death.  All  Hebrew  history, 
FIRST  moreover,  viewed  Jehovah  as  sustaining  the  cause 
^  of  justice  in  the  last  ordeal  of  battle,  fighting  as 
the  Lord  of  Hosts  and  the  Captain  of  a  people 
armed  in  a  righteous  quarrel.  ]^ay,  the  law  did 
in  so  many  words  exempt  from  blame  accidental 
homicides;  and  the  ground  on  which  it  did  so 
made  it  as  clear  as  terms  could  make  it,  where 
Dcut.  xix.  4-6.  the  guilt  of  killing  lay.  It  said,  '  Whoso  killeth 
his  neighbour  ignorantly'  is  '  not  worthy  of  death, 
inasmuch  as  he  hated  him  not  in  time  past.'  Not 
the  blow,  therefore,  but  the  hatred,  was  the  sin 
of  the  sixth  commandment,  even  as  a  civil  statute. 
Killing,  on  the  principles  of  Mosaic  teaching, 
might  be  no  murder.  It  might  be  blameless ;  it 
was  often  righteous;  sometimes  it  was  even  praise- 
worthy. When  justice  armed  the  executioner  or 
the  warrior,  bloodshed  became  his  duty.  But 
hateful  passion  prompting  the  fierce  and  sudden 
blow,  or  still  more,  fed  into  a  grudge  in  the  heart 
— this  was  the  sin  against  God  and  God's  image 
in  man  which  made  manslaughter  to  be  a  crime, 
and  fiUed  with  moral  force  the  bald  hard  word, 
'Thou  shalt  not  kill.'  J^or  was  this  a  mere  in- 
ference from  the  law.  For,  in  fact,  the  Pentateuch 
offered  to  one's  hand  its  own  key,  when  it  bore 
upon  its  pages  words  like  these  :  '  Thou  shalt  not 


The  Sixth  Commandment.  27 

liate  thy  brother  in  thine  heart.  .  .  .  Thou  shalt      part  i. 
not    avenge    nor    bear   any  grudge   against   the       first 
children  of  thy  people ;  but  thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbour  as  thyself/     I  quote  these  words  from 
Leviticus,  in  order  to  show  that  our  Lord  neither  Lev.  xix.  17, 

'  18. 

made  a  new  law  nor  put  a  new  sense  upon  an 
old  one,  when,  to  the  superficial  juristic  reading 
of  the  scribes,  He  opposed  a  more  spiritual  inter- 
pretation. The  fact  is,  that  the  pharisaic  reading 
could  only  have  been  hit  on  by  men  of  shallow 
nature  and  cold  hearts,  in  a  time  when  formalism 
had  slain  morality ;  whereas  the  dee]3er  exegesis 
of  Jesus  was  actually  suggested  in  the  Mosaic 
books  themselves,  was  involved  in  the  whole 
prophetic  period  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  had 
been  recognised  by  earnest  and  honest  Hebrews 
in  every  age.  The  one  was  in  reality  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  commandment,  the  other  its  fulfihnent. 
Our  Lord  was  not  content  to  set  aside  the 
flimsy  rider  which  later  tradition  had  attached 
to  the  sixth  commandment,  and  to  fall  back  on 
that  older  and  more  scriptural  interpretation 
which  read  in  it  a  condemnation  of  hatred  and 
unjust  anger.  He  did  more.  He  tracked  this 
sinful  passion  from  its  concealed  presence  in  the 
heart,  onward  to  the  confines  of  murderous  act. 
To  each  degree  He  affixed  a  deepening  penalty; 


2  8  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.      but  to  mark  how  far  the  divine  outruns  in  its 
FIRST        severity  all  human  justice,  He   attached  to  the 

ILLUSTRATION  ^  ,  -,  jy  •  j_i 

lowest  grade  of  passion  the  same  supreme  sen- 
tence which  human  jurisprudence  reserves  for 
the  highest; 

Three  grades  of  guilt  short  of  murder  in 
the  breach  of  this  sixth  commandment  are  in- 
stanced by  our  Lord  :  causeless  anger,  provocation 
to  hasty  speech,  and  deliberate  insult.  There  are 
three  degrees  of  penalty  to  correspond,  borrowed 
from  Hebrew  jurisprudence :  the  judgment,  the 
council,  and  Gehenna.  But  the  lowest  degree 
of  judgment  meted  out  to  suppressed  anger  is 
the  same  as  in  rabbinical  procedure  formed  the 
penalty  of  murder.  By  so  much  is  heavenly 
justice  in  God's  new  kingdom  stricter  and  more 
exigent  than  Hebrew  law.  A  little  elucidation 
of  the  text  will  be  needful  to  bring  this  out. 
First  let  me  try  to  explain  the  three  degrees  of 
guilt.      The  first  is  : 

Wlwsoever  is  angry  vnth  his  hrothcr  ivithout 
a  cause. — As  all  killing^  is  not  murder,  so  all 
anger  is  not  hatred.  It  is  even  one  mark  of  a 
noble  and  pure  nature,  to  be  susceptible  of  that 
just  and  honest  anger  which  is  the  recoil  of  the 
generous  against  the  base,  of  the  true  man  against 
the  liar,  of  the  chaste  against   the  lewd,  of  all 


The  Sixth  Commandment.  29 

manly  virtue  against  villany  and  shameless  out-      part  i. 
rage.     Even  when  it  is  the  injured  person  him-       first 

ILLUSTRATION 

self  in  whose  cheek  this  passion  flames,  it  may 
be  quite  noble ;  for  oppression  can  turn  even  weak 
women  and  cowardly  men  for  the  time  into  moral 
heroes.  Much  more  when  high  -  spirited  men 
resent  the  wrong  done  to  others ;  or  better  still, 
the  wrong  which  every  injury  inflicted  by  the 
strong  upon  the  weak  does  to  the  majesty  of 
justice,  and  to  Him  AVho  is  the  avenger  of  the 
right.  It  would  be  well  for  us  if  at  this  hour  in 
England  we  had  more  of  that  public  indignation 
which  makes  each  citizen  the  guardian  of  his 
fellow,  which  represses  the  cruelty  of  domestic 
and  social  tyrants  by  the  civil  sword,  and  which, 
when  it  strikes  at  criminals,  strikes  not  for  the 
advantage  of  society  only,  but  as  well  for  right- 
eousness and  for  God.  In  such  indignation  there 
is  no  hatred.  It  is  clear  from  malign  breath,  as 
the  steel  sword  of  justice.  It  is  at  its  core 
charitable,  for  it  springs  from  the  love  of  the 
good;  and  against  the  bad  it  bears  no  ill-will,  but 
a  most  tender  and  pure  pity. 

From  it  stands  as  far  removed  the  causeless 
anger  in  which  all  breach  of  the  sixth  command- 
ment begins,  as  darkness  stands  apart  from  light, 
or  love  from  hate.     It  matters  little  whether  this 


3  0  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.  word  rendered  '  without  a  cause  '  stand  part  of 
FIRST  the  original  text,  or  is  (as  it  may  be)  a  gloss 
iLLvsTRATiox  g^f^g^,g(j  ^q  ^reep  in  at  a  very  early  date.^  In 
either  case,  it  carries  the  sense  of  the  passage  in 
it.  Guilty  anger  is  guilty,  because  it  is  not 
moved  by  an  adequate  ground  in  the  conduct 
of  the  offender ;  finds  no  sufficient  moral  justi- 
fication for  itself ;  and  draws  its  warmth,  therefore, 
not  from  the  justice  of  the  case,  but  from  per- 
sonal passion.  Such  anger  as  a  man  is  stung 
into  by  his  neighbour's  misconduct,  not  because 
right  is  wronsjed  or  God   offended,  but  because 

C>  CI  ' 

his  own  interest  or  feelings  have  suffered  :  this 
is  anger  without  cause.  It  is  blind,  because 
it  will  not  look  at  the  justice  of  the  case.  It 
is  vindictive,  for  it  is  a  personal  wound  which 
has  to  be  atoned  for.  It  is  hasty,  for  it  is 
heated  and  cannot  pause  to  grow  cool.  It  is 
spiteful,  bent  on  returning  evil  for  evil.  It  is 
the  mother  of  hatred  and  the  first  secret  fount 
of  murderous  violence.  Who  of  us  does  not 
know  by  frequent  experience  what  it  is  to  be 
provoked  by  some  sudden  wrong,  or  the  crossing 

*  It  has  against  it  tlie  autliority  of  the  Vatican  and  Sinaitic 
■manuscripts,  as  well  as  of  some  old  versions,  and  is  rejected  by. 
Tischendorf,  Lachmann,  Meyer,  and  (though  on  internal  grounds 
only)  Tholuck.  If  a  corruption,  it  must  have  found  its  way 
into  the  text  within  the  second  century. 


ILLUSTRATION 


Tlie  Sixth  Commandment.  31 

of  our  pleasure,  into  this  heedless,  bitter,  hot-  part  i. 
hearted  temper,  which  forgets  itself,  and  loses  first 
sight  alike  of  mercy  and  of  fairness  ?  Who  has 
not  felt  its  restless,  fiery  workings  ?  "Wlioso, 
saith  Jesus,  is  thus  angry  with  his  brother,  has 
broken  already  the  sixth  commandment. 
The  second  degree  is  thus  expressed : 
Wliosoever  shall  say  to  his  brother,  '  Raca' — 
'  Eaca '  was  a  slight  colloquial  exclamation,  used 
by  the  Jews  when  annoyed  or  irritated.  It  pro- 
bably meant  nothing,  and  therefore  cannot  be 
translated ;  or  if  it  had  originally  some  slang 
meaning  of  contempt,  it  had  ceased  to  suggest  its 
first  idea,  and  was  muttered  by  the  provoked  or 
ill-tempered  man  without  thinking  what  it  signi- 
fied. It  is  thus  a  specimen  of  a  class  of  angry 
expletives,  common  enough  in  all  languages, 
which  serve  as  what  may  be  called  a  safety 
valve  or  harmless  outlet  for  irritated  feeling. 
But„irritated  feelinoj  ouc^ht  to  be  denied  all  out- 
let.  lU-nature  which  is  kept  under  control  by 
the  restraint  of  principle  or  one's  better  feelings, 
is  not  so  bad  as  ill-nature  which  finds  vent  in  a 
word,  even  in  a  word  so  slight  and  meaningless 
as  this ;  ay,  though  we  mumble  it  through  our 
clenched  teeth.  Our  Lord  therefore  sets  His 
mark  upon  such  discharges   of  irritation,  as   not 


1 LLUSTRATION 


32  Tlie  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.  only  bred  by  a  passionate  and  spiteful  heart,  but 
FIRST  as  betraying  a  lack  of  control,  a  passion  which 
breaks,  though  no  more  than  breaks,  into  utter- 
ance ;  a  thing  worse  for  us,  and  for  our  neigh- 
bour, than  to  endure  the  pent-up  throes  of  unjust 
provocation  in  one's  own  breast. 
•  There  is  a  still  worse  stage : 
Whosoever  shall  say,  '  Thou  fool'  —  In  the 
Palestine  vocabulary  of  abuse,  this  word  meant 
a  great  deal  more  than  the  last.  It  conveyed, 
when  used  in  passion,  a  charge  of  senselessness 
and  wickedness  at  once;  and  was  the  bitterest 
epithet  ill-will  could  compass  when  in  fuU  ex- 
plosion.-^ As  '  Eaca '  marks  the  lowest  stage  of 
spoken  displeasure,  where  anger  just  passes  into 
half-involuntary  scolding  ;  so  '  Fool '  seems  here  to 
mark  the  last  stage,  when  anger  is  on  the  point  of 
passing  beyond  speech  into  intemperate  act.  No 
man  could  permit  himself  to  address  his  brother 

^  I  need  hardly  say  that  of  course  the  word  might  ^6'  ed, 
and  innocently  used,  where  no  utterance  of  temper  wai  oived 
at  all.  As  an  expression  of  just  indignation,  our  Lord  Himself 
applied  this,  with  still  harder  terms,  to  the  pharisaic  party 
(Matt,  xxiii.  17  ;  cf.  ver.  33  and  Luke  xiii.  32).  With  sorrowful 
earnestness,  He  addressed  it  to  His  two  disciples  at  Emmaus 
(Luke  xxiv.  25).  Apostles  were  not  afraid  to  follow  so  high 
an  example.  (Gal.  iii.  1  ;  Jas.  ii.  20).  But  it  is  Quaker-like 
childishness  to  press  the  outward  letter  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  where 
the  spirit  in  which  the  word  is  used  is  so  opposite.     This  is  to  be. 


The  Sixth  Commandment.  33 

man  in  a  deliberate  term  of  serious  insult  who      part  i. 
had   not  lost   all  self-command ;  unless,  indeed,       first 
habitual  explosions  of  temper  had  made  the  em-  i^^^'^^^^^'^^*^^ 
ployment  of  abusive  speech  easy  to  him.     When 
self-respect,  justice,  and    kindly  feeling   are  all 
trampled  in  this  way  under  the  hoof  of  animal 
rage,  what  is  left,  save  cowardice,  to  hold  back 
the  hand  from  a  blow  ?     Our  Lord  has  tracked 
the  evil  temper  from  its  beginnings  in  unjusti- 
fiable resentment  to  the  very  verge  of  that  open 
violence  at  which  even  pharisaic  morality,  like 
our  public  justice,  was  compelled  to  deal  with  it. 
To  each  stage  in  this  ascending  breach  of  the 
sixth  commandment   our    blessed    Lord    has  at- 
tached a  penalty.     There  is  no  satisfactory  way 
of   reading   these  penalties,  save    to   understand 
them  as  implying  degrees  in  God's  punishment 
of  sin,  but  degrees  of  an  unknown  divine  penalty 
expressed  in  terms  borrowed  from  the  criminal 
iu-is'^kidence  of  the  Jews.     Two  of  the  words 
used'  are  certainly  so  borrowed.     '  The  Judgment ' 
was  the  title  of  a  local  or  municipal  bench  of 
justices,  which  sat  in  every  little  town  of  over 
one  hundred  and  twenty  of  a  population,  and  had 
the  power  to  sentence  criminals  to  death  by  be- 
heading with  the  sword.      '  The  Council '  is  a  com- 
mon name  for  the  supreme  court  of  the  Sanhedrim, 
c 


34 


Tlie  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 


PART  I. 


FIRST 
ILLIJSTRATIOX 


2  Kings 
xxiii.  10 ; 
2  Chron. 
xxviii,  3, 
xxxiii.  6; 
Jer.  xix., 
xxxii.  35, 

Matt,  xxvii. 
6-10;  c. 
Acts  i.  18, 19. 

Isa.  Ixvi.  24. 
Quoted  in 
Mark  ix.  44, 
etc. 


wMcli  sat  in  Jerusalem,  had  exclusive  cognizance 
of  the  gravest  offences,  as  treason  or  blasphemy, 
and  could  sentence  to  death  by  stoning.  The 
third  word  is  the  '  Gehenna  of  fire,'  which  can- 
not here  mean,  as  it  sometimes  did,  the  place  of 
final  woe,  for  that  would  be  a  most  inconsequent 
third  to  two  Jewish  forms  of  civil  trial.  The 
verse  becomes  intelligible  when  w^e  simply  read 
'  Gehenna,'  not  as  a  type  for  hell,  but  in  its  own 
proper  sense,  as  the  name  of  that  terrible  and 
ill-omened  ravine  of  Tophet  in  the  valley  of  the 
Sons  of  Hinnom  just  under  Mount  Zion,  which  for 
so  many  a  Hebrew  age  had  been  held  accursed  ; 
which  from  the  times  of  the  evil  kings,  who  there 
burnt  hideous  sacrifices  of  infant  life  to  Moloch, 
down  to  the  day  when  Judas  went  to  it  to  hang 
himself,  had  been  a  receptacle  for  the  foulest 
refuse  of  the  city ;  where,  too,  were  sometimes 
flung,  after  their  execution,  the  unburied  bodies 
of  the  worst  criminals  ;  where  (in  Isaiah's  awful 
words)  the  worm  never  died,  and  the  fire  was  never 
quenched.  It  may  be  true  that  murderers  were 
never  cast  out  after  death  to  lie  unburied  in  that 
foul  dell ;  as  little  were  they  stoned  by  the  San- 
hedrim; but  none  the  less  did  these  words  of  Jesus 
mark  to  Jewish  ears  an  ascending  series  of  shame 
and  horror  in  the  punishment  of  the  criminal,  tiU 


The  Sixth  Commandment.       '  35 

the  last  aggravation  known  to  Jewish  law  or  prac-      part  i. 

tice  should  be  reached.     It  was  impossible  that       first 

these  three  modes  of  capital  punishment  could  be  illlstration 

taken  literally.     No  Jewish  tribunal  could  deal 

with  that  heart-anger  with  which  He  began  His 

series ;  angry  words  could  not  be  so  punished  by 

earthly  judges  ;  no  such  division  of  jurisdiction  in 

cases  of  violence  was  known  to  Hebrew  usage. 

The  three  graduated  modes  of  execution  are  simply 

borrowed  as  images  of  those  unknown  penalties 

which  await  the  prisoners  of  divine  justice  beyond 

this   life ;  and   the  stern   lesson  of  the  passage 

concentrates  itself  in  this  thought,  that  at  the 

Almighty's  awful  bar,  and  before  His  face  Who 

searches  hearts,  the  secret  indulgence  of  unlawful 

malicious  anger  counts  as  murder  does  in  earthly 

courts.      Higher   degrees   of   sin    in    respect    to 

temper  there  are,  and  for  higher  sin  God  reserves 

a  higher  penalty :  but  so  infinitely  more  rigorous 

is  the  moral  code   of  the  new  than  of  the  old 

kingdom,  that  where  Israel's  civil  jurisprudence 

ended,  the  spiritual  penalties  of  God  begin ;  and 

the   lowest   grade   of  what   He  calls  murderous 

passion  runs  parallel  in  His  eye  to  that  supreme 

act  of  violence  which  men  call  murder.     It  is  by 

this  law  of  the  new  kingdom  we  must  be  tried. 

In  two  directions  it  exceeds  in  severity  the  civil 


ILLUSTRATION 


3  6  '     Tlie  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  r.  law  of  commonwealths.  First,  it  judges  all  uu- 
FiRST  justifiable  irritation,  however  slightly  expressed  ; 
nay,  even  when  it  is  not  expressed  at  all.  It 
goes  down  into  the  bosom  of  every  angry  man, 
and  sentences  him  for  his  unrighteous  anger. 
Next,  for  the  passionate  heart  or  hasty  word,  it 
has  a  penalty  as  much  more  terrible  than  civil 
death,  as  spiritual  and  eternal  penalties  transcend 
those  which  are  temporal.  We  are  bound  to  a 
righteousness  which  is  inward,  spiritual,  intensely 
moral;  and  we  are  bound  to  it  by  penalties 
which  are  of  the  world  to  come.  Surely  this 
law  is  not  destroyed ;  it  is  fulfilled. 

Who  of  us  can  keep  this  law  ?  Searched  by 
a  test  so  penetrating  as  this,  there  is  no  con- 
science clear.  We  are  all  at  times  too  hasty, 
short  of  temper,  or  unreasonably  provoked.  We 
all  do  vex  one  another  by  irritability ;  we  now 
and  then  wrong  one  another  by  causeless  ill-will. 
Every  one  of  us,  therefore,  has  cause  to  be  thank- 
ful to  Jesus  that  He  added  to  His  law  words  of 
hope,  to  tell  us  how,  when  we  have  broken  the 
sixth  commandment,  we  may  still  escape  the 
judgment  of  Heaven.  The  last  four  verses  of  the 
passage  are  a  long  but  most  needful  appendix, 
which  in  two  separate  forms  sets  forth  one  lesson. 


The  Sixth  Commandment.  37 

The  angry  man,  who  is  angry  without  cause,  and      part  i. 
in  his  anger  has  spoken  rash  and  wounding  words       first 

no  1  T-Ui-l,  Jl,-lil,  ILLUSTRATION 

or  offered  open  slight,  has  wronged  his  brother. 
It  may  be  that  the  offended  brother  complains  of 
the  wrong  before  God  or  men ;  it  may  be  he  does 
not :  no  matter.  In  either  case,  the  angry  man 
has  made  an  adversary  of  the  Most  High.  God 
is  the  Avenger  of  the  wronged  ;  and  the  object  of  i  Thess.  iv.  6. 
your  injurious  displeasure  or  your  abusive  speech 
is  under  the  shield  of  the  Almighty.  Punishment 
waits  for  you  at  His  bar,  to  be  averted  only  by 
confession  at  His  altar  now.  But  before  confes- 
sion at  the  altar  of  divine  mercy  can  save  you 
from  sentence  at  the  divine  bar  at  last,  the  con- 
fession must  be  made,  not  to  God  only,  but  to 
your  injured  brother ;  reconciliation  must  be  won 
with  man  first,  and  then  with  Heaven.  This 
single  lesson,  which  an  apostle  summed  up  after- 
wards in  these  words,  '  Confess  your  faults  one  Jas.  v.  16. 
to  another,  and  pray  one  for  another,  that  ye  may 
be  healed,'  is  illustrated  twice  over  by  our  Lord 
in  a  vivid  popular  form.  The  first  scene  turns  on 
the  altar  of  mercy ;  the  second  on  the  bar  of  judg- 
ment :  the  first  is  a  drama ;  the  second  a  parable. 

A  Jewish  worshipper  is  already  in  the  temple  Vers.  23,  24. 
court,  waiting  till  his  turn  comes  for  the  officiat- 
ing priest  to  present  his  sacrifice  to  Jehovah.    As 


38  Tlie  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.  he  stands  before  God  to  confess  liis  faults  and 
FIRST  ask  for  mercy,  there  naturally  rises  into  memory 
an  -unacknowledged  breach  of  this  sixth  com- 
mandment. By  some  angry  word  or  injurious 
deed  he  has  wronged  his  neighbour.  What  shall 
he  do  ?  He  is  in  act  to  sacrifice,  about  sacred 
duty,  offering  propitiation  to  offended  God;  yet 
there  is  an  earlier  and  more  urgent  duty.  Wor- 
ship can  better  wait  than  reconciliation.  Apology 
and  restitution  are  sweeter  offerings  to  God  than 
Ps.  li.  17.  a  lamb,  for  they  are  the  sacrifices  of  a  broken  and 
a  contrite  heart.     Nay  more  ;  worship  is  vitiated, 

cf.  isa.  i.      sacrifice  is  refused,  prayer  and  incense  are  abo- 
il—17 

mination,  so  long  as  the  offender  is  unreconciled 

to  the  offended.  '  Go,  then,  on  the  instant ;  stand 
not  on  ceremony,  but  leave  thy  gift,  and  go :  first 
be  reconciled  by  becoming  acknowledgment,  and,  if 
need  be,  by  reparation,  to  thy  brother ;  then,  with 
a  clear  conscience  and  a  tearful  but  lightened 
spirit  of  sweet  and  lowly  penitence,  return  to  offer, 
in  all  joyful  confidence,  thy  gift  of  atonement, 
with  confession  and  with  prayer,  to  the  no  longer 
averted  face  of  the  Eternal  Judge.' 

A  child  can  read  that  lesson ;  and  the  proud- 
est of  men  are  they  who  need  it  most.  But  be- 
cause there  are  those  who  never  go  to  God's  altar, 
and  would  never  be  reminded  by  their  baffled 


The  Sixth  Commandment.  39 

search  for  reconciliation  to  the  Father  that  they      part  i. 
needed  first  a  brother's  pardon,  Jesus  puts  the        first 

,  .      ,  i.  J      1  •  J        ILLUSTRATION 

same  lesson  into  more  urgent  and  alarming  words. 
All  men  do  not  approach  God's  footstool  of  grace  ; 
but  all  men  know  that  they  are  drawing  near  to 
God's  seat  of  justice.  The  imagery  now  is  from  a  Vers.  25,  26. 
civil  action  at  law,  where  a  plaintiff  sues  a  defen- 
dant for  a  debt.  The  road  of  life  is  for  all  of  us  a 
road  with  a  tribunal  at  the  end  of  it ;  and  he  who 
travels  towards  his  grave  in  company  with  fellow- 
men  whom  he  has  hated,  miscalled,  or  aggrieved, 
against  whom  he  has  been  angry  without  reason, 
is  like  a  debtor  who  walks  side  by  side  with 
his  creditor  on  their  way  to  court.  A  few  steps 
further,  and  both  parties  will  have  passed  into 
that  awful  judgment  hall  together  —  into  the 
place  where  already  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth 
sits  and  waits  for  us.  Well  did  these  Galilean 
peasants  who  heard  Jesus,  know  that  once  they 
carried  their  petty  disputes  before  the  stern  Sad- 
ducean  face  of  a  local  justice,  their  chance  of  com- 
promise or  private  composition  was  over.  It  was 
good  advice  for  a  debtor  to  agree  with  the  plain- 
tiff while  they  were  on  the  road,  and  to  do  it 
quickly ;  lest,  if  the  creditor  handed  him  over  to 
the  court,  the  judge  should  commit  the  insolvent 
to  the  of&cer,  and  the  ofiicer  to  gaoL     But  the 


40  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.      words  of  the  Preacher  swell  and  grow  weighty 
FIRST       with  an  infinitely  more  solemn  and  awful  signi- 
ficance, when  He  adds,  with  His  usual  trumpet- 
Ver.  26.        note  of  Warning :  '  Verily  I  say  unto  thee,  Thou 
shalt  by  no  means  come  out  thence  till  thou  hast 
paid  the  uttermost  farthing.' 

In  this  species  of  debt  to  one  another  we  are 
all  insolvent.  No  brother  may  have  formally 
lodged  complaint  against  us  in  the  supreme  court, 
or  appealed  for  justice  against  our  violence  and 

Kom.  xii.  19 ;  wrath.     But  there  is  One  Who  undertakes  every 

xiv.  9-13.  .  .  "^ 

cause ;    and  with   Him,  not  with  our  brethren, 

we  have  in  the  last  resort  to  do.     Who  of  us 

can  say,  before    His    face,  that  we  were  never 

angry  without  a  cause,  have  never  vexed  a  heart 

by  peevish  passion,  nor  ever  spoken  the  words 

that  bite,  nor  nursed  a  dark,  malignant,  envious, 

or   hateful   temper    within    our    breast  ?      Who 

of  us  goes  clean-handed  to  be  tried  by  Christ's 

version  of  the  sixth  commandment  ?     And  shall 

we  risk  by  obduracy  the  sentence  of  that  Judge  ? 

Are  we  in  wrong  against  any  man,  and  dare  we 

travel,  impenitent  and  unpardoned,  towards  death  ? 

Think :  your  brother  dead,  past  hearing  of  youi' 

too  late  repentance  !  or  you  dead,  snatched  un- 

shriven  from  his  presence  !    Ah,  let  no  man  live 

his  uncertain  days  in  an  unreconciled  feud  !    All 


The  Sixth  Commandment.  41 

along  the  road  of  life  there  is  possible  for  us  a  part  i. 
continual  confessing  and  atoning  and  reconciling,  f^t 
a  making  up  of  differences,  and  apologizing  for 
wrongs,  and  healing  of  hurts ;  and  with  that 
mightier  Plaintiff  behind,  he  who  has  won  his 
brother's  pardon  may  also  be  reconciled  at  the 
altar  of  Immanuel's  sacrifice.  A  few  more  steps 
only ;  and  we  may  stand  before  a  bar  where  there 
is  no  forgiveness  and  from  which  there  can  be 
no  appeal  I 


SECOND  TLLUSTEATION : 
THE    SEYEXTH    COMMANDMENT. 


43 


Ye  have  heard  that  it  ivas  said  hy  them  of  old  time,  '  Thou 
shalt  not  commit  adultery:''  hut  1  say  unto  you,  That  who- 
soever looketh  on  a  woman  to  lust  after  her,  hath  committed 
adultery  with  her  already  in  his  heart.  And  if  thine  eye  offend 
thee,  pluck  it  out,  and  cast  it  from  thee :  for  it  is  prof  table 
for  thee  that  one  of  thy  members  should  perish,  and  not  that 
thy  whole  body  should  be  cast  into  hell.  And  if  thy  right  hand 
offend  thee,  cut  it  off,  and  cast  it  from  thee :  for  it  is  profit- 
able for  thee  that  one  of  thy  members  should  perish,  and  not 
that  thy  whole  body  should  be  cast  into  hell.  It  hath  been  said, 
'  Whosoever  shall  put  away  his  wife,  let  him  give  her  a  writ- 
ing of  divorcement:''  but  I  say  unto  you,  That  whosoever 
shall  put  away  his  wife,  swing  for  the  cause  of  fornication, 
causeth  her  to  commit  adultery :  and  whosoever  shall  marry 
her  that  is  divorced  committeth  adultery. — Matt.  v.  27-32. 
Cf.  Matt.  xix.  3-9,  and  parallels;  also  xviii.  8,  9,  and 
parallels;  Luke  xvi.  18. 


44 


THE    SEVENTH    COMMANDMENT. 


0 


UE  Lord's  first  example  to  show  that  His  re-      part  i. 


lation  to  the  law  of  Moses  was  fulfilment,      second 

.  1  •       1  T  P  ILLUSTRATION 

not  destruction,  was  the  sixth  commandment  ot 
the  decalogue ;  His  next  is  the  seventh.  The 
former  was  the  law  of  temper,  regulating  offences 
between  men  ;  this  is  the  law  of  marriage,  regulat- 
ing the  relation  of  the  sexes. 

Our  Lord  cites  this  law  precisely  as  it  stands 
in  the  original  Mosaic  code.  It  was  not  needful 
to  quote  any  pharisaic  gloss,  because  it  was  now 
evident  that  they  would  read  these  words,  as  they 
had  read  the  words  of  the  sixth,  literally.  To 
their  literal  understanding  of  the  words,  'Thou 
shalt  not  commit  adultery,'  our  Lord  is  content 
briefly  to  oppose  a  deeper  interpretation.  Exactly 
as,  in  the  former  case,  He  had  gone  back  from  the 
act  of  killing  to  the  passion  of  unjust  anger,  in 
which  killing  takes  its  rise ;  so  here  He  goes 
back  from  the  act  of  adultery  to  the  unlawful 
lust  which  is  its  cause.  The  marriage  law  differs, 
indeed,  from  the  law  against  malicious  anger  in 

45 


46  Tlie  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.      this,  tliat  it  places  a  restraint  which  may  be  called 
SECOND      arbitrary  npon  a  natural  appetite.     There  is  an 

ILLUSTRATION  ,  ,.,..,,  ,, 

anger  also  which  is  righteous  as  well  as  an  anger 
which  is  wicked  ;  only  in  this  case  the  distinction 
lies  in  the  very  nature  of  the  anger  itself,  and 
would  have  been  felt  by  the  untutored  conscience 
apart  from  external  statutes :  whereas  it  is  the 
express  ordinance  of  God  which  makes  sexual  love 
within  the  marriage  bond  a  lawful  and  pure  thing, 
and  outside  the  marriage  bond  a  sinful  and  defiling 
thing.  It  is  true  that  this  primeval  ordinance  has 
its  roots  very  deep  in  the  constitution  of  the  race. 
For,  first  of  all,  God  created  the  two  sexes  so,  and 
so  balanced  their  numbers,  that  each  filled  out 
and  made  up  the  complement  of  the  other,  with 
this  evident  design,  that  one  man  and  one  woman 
should  be  in  everything  the  helps  and  counterparts 
of  one  another,  and  by  their  union  realize  the 
perfect  condition  of  human  life.  Besides,  God 
placed  the  appetites  of  the  body  under  the  con- 
trol of  reason  and  of  the  higher  social  affections ; 
so  that  a  man  feels  himself  degraded  if  his  love 
for  a  woman  is  more  animal  than  moral  in  its 
character  ;  that  is,  if  the  higher  elements  in  it  are 
subordinated  to  the  baser.  These  two  facts  in  1 
human  constitution — the  complementary  relati 
of  the  sexes,  and  the  preponderance  of  moral  a 


The  Seventh  Commandment.  4t7 

social  affections  over  brute  instinct — are  facts  part  i. 
which  lie  at  the  basis  of  marriage:  they  make  second 
chastity,  that  great  virtue  and  beauty  of  character  ^^^^  •"''tp-^tiun 
which  is  not  possible  for  other  creatures,  whether 
above  us  or  below  us,  possible  for  men ;  they 
form  the  preparation  which  God  the  Creator  laid 
for  the  marriage  ordinance  of  God  the  Legislator. 
Still,  the  marriage  ordinance  sets  a  fence  round 
about  the  relations  of  the  sexes  which  is  in  a 
sense  arbitrary,  because  it  rests  immediately  on 
the  command  of  God.  The  command  is  primeval. 
It  dates  from  Eden.  It  has  survived,  not  the 
fall  only,  but  the  dispersion,  the  migrations,  the 
disintegrations,  the  embrutement,  of  the  races  of 
men.  It  has  undergone  almost  endless  corrup- 
tions. It  has  had  to  tolerate  polygamy,  concu- 
binage, polyandry,  lax  divorce,  the  acquisition  of 
wives  by  violence  or  barter,  the  holding  of  them 
as  chattels,  the  use  of  them  as  slaves.  Among 
barbarous  tribes  and  in  rude  as^es,  all  these  and 
other  abuses  have  modified  or  overlaid  the  blessed 
marriage  law ;  but  they  have  not  cancelled  it. 
In  the  worst  cases,  marriage  has  somehow  and  in 
some  shape  survived ;  and  upon  the  passions  of 
the  most  savage  and  debased  it  has  always  im- 
posed a  certain  check. 

iSTow,  wherein  lies  the  essence  of  this  marriage 


ILLUSTRATION 


48  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.  law  ?  It  aims  at  keeping  the  relation  of  man 
SECOND  and  woman  pure,  by  permitting  intimacy  only 
within  a  given  guarded  bond  betwixt  one  man 
and  one  woman.  But  these  relations  are  not 
kept  pure  by  merely  controlling  the  outward 
behaviour  of  the  sexes  to  each  other.  The  re- 
lation of  man  to  woman  is  a  relation  of  inward 
feeling,  of  passion ;  and  unless  the  marriage 
law  can  control  the  desires  and  passions  of  the 
sexes,  it  fails  to  secure  purity.  Therefore  our 
Lord  reads  the  seventh  commandment  as  virtually 
a  commandment  for  the  government  of  the  heart. 
He  distinguishes,  in  fact,  three  stages  in  the 
breach  of  it.  The  first  and  outermost  is  that 
which  the  law  expresses :  adultery.  From  this 
consummated  breach  of  the  marriage  bond.  He 
goes  back  upon  the  earliest  voluntary  expression 
of  criminal  desire.  That  earliest  voluntary  ex- 
pression is,  the  gaze.  For,  when  He  says,  '  to 
look  on  a  woman  to  lust,'  He  does  not  mean  any 
involuntary  excitation  of  passion  through  a  casual 
sight  or  presence  of  its  object.  It  is  through  the 
eye  primarily  that  passion  enters ;  but  if  the  eye 
be  turned  away,  and  the  moral  j)^rity  of  the  heart 
expel  the  intruding  movement  toward  sin,  then 
the  law  is  not  broken  ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  kept. 
It  is  when  the  criminal  impulse  is  so  far  indulged 


The  Seventh  Commandment.  49 

that  the  eye  is  purposely  directed  to  rest  with  part  i. 
pleasure  on  the  exciting  object,  that  the  earliest  second 
act  of  unchastity  is  committed.  Even  this  is  not 
yet  the  beginning  of  adultery.  To  look  at  a 
woman  in  order  to  lust  after  her  is  the  earliest 
bodily  manifestation  of  the  sin ;  yet  it  is  not  so 
much  the  perpetration  of  the  crime,  as  the  first 
proof  that  a  man  has  perpetrated  it.  Before  that 
look,  there  came  the  inward  indulgence  of  desire ; 
the  consent  to  a  forbidden  appetite  ;  the  surrender 
of  the  soul's  pure  and  loyal  protest  against  unlaw- 
ful relations.  '  Already/  therefore,  says  our  Lord, 
tracking  the  sin  inward  now  to  its  real  seat, 
'  already  the  man  has  committed  adultery  in  his 
heart : '  for  he  has  submitted  his  will,  and,  with 
liis  will,  one  at  least  of  his  members,  to  the 
dictation  of  an  unhallowed  desire.  Henceforth 
it  is  occasion,  or  impunity,  and  not  desire,  which 
fails  him ;  it  is  not  the  consent  of  his  will,  but 
something  else,  which  hinders  the  prosecution  of 
the  crime  into  adulterous  act. 

Beneath  a  law  so  scrutinizing,  so  subtly  pene- 
trative, which  expects  our  loyalty  for  the  sanctities 
of  marriage  to  be  so  scrupulous,  which  demands 
that  the  soul's  purity  shall  repel  the  very  first 
approach  of  prohibited  desire,  and  calls  the 
briefest  impure  glance  a  crime, — beneath  such  a 

D 


6  0  Tlie  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.      law,  who  shall  say  there  is  any  one  chaste  ?     Dare 

SECOND      any  of  us  have  the  secret  history  of  his  heart 

ILLUSTRATION  ^^^g^^^^^  ^      This  moralist  on  the  mount  is  to 

be  our  Judge.  How  shall  we  answer  Him  for 
the  imaginations  which  have  defiled  our  private 
hours,  for  the  prurience  to  which  we  gave  house- 
room,  for  the  warmth  of  look,  the  desire  which 
dared  not  betray  itself  by  a  gesture  ?  The  purest- 
minded  of  youths  or  maidens  may  fitly  suffer  these 
words  of  Jesus  to  bear  upon  the  conscience,  in 
order  to  warn  each  one  against  the  insidious 
approaches  even  from  afar  of  dishonourable  and 
unhallowed  affection.  There  is  no  one  who  does 
not  need  to  dread  its  entrance  into  those  secret 
recesses  of  the  nature  which  ought  to  be  the 
home  or  shrine  for  God's  most  pure  Spirit. 

To  His  brief  exposition  of  the  spirituality  of 
God's  law  on  this  delicate  subject,  our  Lord  sub- 
joins virtually  two  appendices. 

The  first  appendix  runs  parallel  to  the  practi- 
cal exhortation  appended  in  the  preceding  case 
of  the  sixth  commandment.  In  that  case  He 
bade  the  man  who  had  given  his  neighbour 
offence  by  hasty  wrath,  leave  the  holiest  duties 
of  religion  on  one  side  until  he  had  cleared  the 
way  for  God's  forgiveness  by  '  first  being  recon- 


The  Seventh  Commandment.  51 

ciled  to  his  brother.'  To  repair  the  wrong  of  part  i. 
angry  passion  by  at  once  apologizing  for  it,  second 
was  a  natural  lesson  to  be  learnt  from  the  law 
against  murder.  Till  the  innocent  sufferer  by 
injurious  anger  has  been  pacified,  nothing  is 
done.  The  sin  of  unchastity  is  not  less  exigent. 
To  rid  oneself  of  it,  is  quite  as  pressing  as 
to  repair  a  wrong.  Only,  in  its  early  stages,  it 
is  not  another  who  is  injured  by  it ;  it  is  the 
spiritual  nature  of  the  sinner  himself  which 
suffers  most.  'Every  [other]  sin,'  as  St.  Paul 
explains,  '  that  a  man  doeth  is  without  the  body  ;  1  Cor.  vi.  18. 
but  he  that  committeth  fornication  sinneth  against 
his  own  body.'  The  evil  is  already  done  when 
impurity  is  suffered  to  rest  for  an  instant  in  the 
heart ;  for  then  the  heart  and  inward  nature  of  cf.  Tit.  1 15. 
the  man  is  defiled.  ^ATien  impurity  passes  into 
act,  when  it  directs  one  movement  of  the  hand, 
or  so  much  as  a  glance  of  the  eye,  the  body 
also  is  debased  from  its  legitimate  functions  and 
prostituted  to  unholiness.  For  a  sin  which  so 
instantly  and  fearfully  avenges  itself  upon  the 
doer  of  it,  in  soul  and  body,  no  ex  post  facto 
atonement  provides  any  remedy.  A  man  cannot 
apologize  to  himself  for  the  lewd  imagination 
which  has  for  one  permitted  moment  turned  his 
soul  into  a  sty.     He  cannot  make  up  by  subse- 


5  2  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.      quent    confession   for  the   debasement    Ms   own 

SECOND      nature  has  suffered.     Eemedies  after  the  act  do 

ILLUSTRATION  ^^^  ^^^^   ^^^^^      Prevcntion  is   the   only  cure. 

Hence  all  moralists  have  prescribed  for  those  who 

are  tempted  to  this  sin,  not  resistance,  but  flight. 

1  Cor.  vi.  18. '  Flee  fornication,'  says  St.   Paul.     Job  made  a 

Prov.  V.  8.    covenant  with  his  eyes.     '  Eemove  thy  way  far 

off,'  said  Solomon,  'and  come  not  nigh.'     So  the 

Eccius.  ix.    wise  son  of  Sirach  :  '  Gaze  not,'  .  .  .  '  look  not 

3-9 

round  about  thee  in  the  streets,'  ..."  turn 
away  thine  eyes.'  It  is  in  the  same  line  that 
this  Divine  Teacher  insists  on  the  most  ruthless 
self-denial  and  mortifying  of  fleshly  appetite,  as 
the  only  way  for  the  passion-tempted  and  en- 
Matt,  xviii.  dangered  soul  to  escape  defilement.  On  another 
occasion  Jesus  used  these  same  vehement  images 
— the  amputation  of  our  most  useful  member, 
the  right  hand ;  and  the  excision  of  the  most 
pleasant,  our  right  eye — to  express  in  a  more 
general  sense  the  stern  and  painful  need  under 
which  men  lie  to  sacrifice  everything  to  the 
avoidance  of  any  sin.  Here  there  is  a  pecu- 
liar propriety  in  them.  The  particular  sin  re- 
ferred to  is  a  sin  of  the  body.  The  ordinary 
and  innocent  enjoyment  of  bodily  pleasures  is 
that  very  line  along  which  danger  to  chastity 
meets  the  young  and  hot-blooded.     It  is  plea- 


The  Seventh  Commandinent.  53 

sant  to  see  pleasant  and  fair  society,  but  there      part  i. 
is   a   certain   society  into   which   a  young   man      second 
cannot  enter  without  perilous  excitement.    There 
is   a  class   of  books   which,  though  some   may, 
others    cannot,    read   without    catching    a    stain 
from  fascinating  but  doubtful  passages  or  indeli- 
cate innuendoes.     There  are  objects  of  art  which 
to  the  pure  indeed  are  pure,  but  on  which  some 
eyes  cannot  look  without  a  suggestion  of  impro- 
priety.    What    then  ?       Let   no  man  judge  his  i  Cor.  x.  29. 
fellow's  freedom,  or  erect  his  own  evil  mind  into  a 
censor  upon  the  good  of  better  men.      On  the  other  cf.  isa.  m. 
hand,  let  no  man  trifle  with  his  own  safety,  or  try  in  2  Cor.  vi. 

17 

how  he  can  touch  pitch  and  keep  his  fingers  clean.  * 
To  restrict  one's  pleasures  and  pursuits  to  the 
limit  which  is  safe,  will  mean  self-denial.  It 
will  entail  effort.  It  may  be  a  loss  of  advantages 
which  others  can  reap  without  harm.  It  may 
even  prove  to  be  such  self-inflicted  martyrdom  as 
that  buffeting  and  bruising  of  the  body,  for  the 
sake  of  masterini:^  it,  of  which  St.  Paul  wrote  to  1  Cor.  ix. 

25-27. 

the  licentious  Corinthians.  No  matter.  Better 
a  thousand  times  to  forego  all  use  and  joy  of  sight 
or  touch ;  better  to  have  neither  eye  to  see  with 
nor  hand  to  toy  with ;  than  be  decoyed  by  loose 
glances  and  soft  touches  into  that  habit  of  im- 
purity which  entangles  a  man,  body  and  soul,  in 


5  4  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.       such   meslies   of  lust  as  no    Samson  can  break 

SECOND      through,  which  drags  the  self-despising,  despicable 

iLLUbTRATioN  yj^,^^-^  q£  j-^^g  ^^^  indulgcncc  down  that  road  of 

deepening  abomination  which  ends  in  the  hell  of 
the  licentious,  the  foulest  circle  in  the  whole 
Inferno. 

]^ot,  of  course,  that  any  literal  violence,  such 
as  earnest  but  misguided  men  have  now  and  then 
practised  upon  their  bodies,  can  touch  the  seat  of 
this  moral  plague.  Surgical  modes  of  cure  would 
not  be  too  painful,  nor  the  disfigurement  of 
amputation  too  shameful,  could  they  only  pur- 
chase that  purity  which  is  the  life  of  the  soul. 
But  the  virus  of  lust,  sharper  and  more  deadly 
than  any  poison,  works  too  deep  for  surgery. 
When  all  foreseen  occasions  or  provocatives  to 
sin  have  been  manfully  cut  away,  and  every  care 
taken  not  to  rouse  the  evil  which  slumbers  in 
the  heart,  there  will  still  remain  the  real  battle 
of  conscience  and  reason  and  modesty  against 
appetite ;  a  battle  to  be  fought  at  last  within  the 
secret  soul  of  each  tempted  man,  and  for  which 
help  is  to  be  found  nowhere  but  on  one's  knees. 
To  forego  pleasures  which  other  people  call  inno- 
cent, to  tear  yourself  from  the  gayest  company, 
to  impose  on  yourself  the  sharpest  fasts  or  self- 
displeasing,   would  be    a    cheap    recipe    for    the 


The  Seventh  Commandment.  55 

eradication  of  this  sin,  were  it  only  an  effectual      part  i. 
one.     Yet  despise  not  these  outward  helps  and      second 

,.,.  ,  .p  .  ,      r.         ILLUSTRATION 

conditions  to  a  cure,  if  you  are  m  earnest  lor 
purity.  Call  not  this  asceticism ;  if  it  is,  it  is 
the  asceticism  which  is  rational  and  Christian. 
Everything  is  right,  and  not  right  only,  but  need- 
ful, which  will  cut  off  the  occasion  of  images  that 
are  unclean,  and  desires  that  are  beyond  control. 
Our  Master  is  no  Puritan,  but  He  is  the  most 
thorough  and  the  most  severe  of  all  moralists. 

The  second  appendix  to  our  Lord's  brief  expo-  Vers.  31,  32. 
sition  of  the  law  of  marriage  bears  upon  divorce. 
It  looks  at  the  first  glance  like  a  fresh  example 
of  how  Jesus  fulfils  in  His  new  kincfdom  the  law 

o 

of  the  old ;  for  it  opens  with  a  similar  formula : 
*  It  hath  been  said,'  and  it  opposes  to  the  tradi- 
tional divorce  law  of  the  Jewish  scribes  a  regu- 
lation which  might  be  called  original.  The  law 
regulating  divorce,  however,  must  be,  from  the 
nature  of  the  case,  a  corollary  from  the  great  law 
of  matrimony,  when  rightly  understood;  and 
therefore  I  read  it  as  simply  an  appendix  to  the 
teaching  of  the  twenty-eighth  verse.  Jesus' 
attitude  to  the  divorce  customs  of  His  time  forms 
a  curious  chapter,  sufficiently  large  and  difficult 
to  deserve  handling  by  itself.  The  question 
came  before  Him  more  explicitly  on  a  later  occa- 


5  6  Tlie  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.      sion,  when  it  received  at  His  hands  a  fuller  treat- 

sEcoND      ment.     Here  I  can  only  resume  His  teaching  on 

r..^.       .     the  point  as   it  bears  upon  those  views  of  the 

Cf.  Matt.  XIX.  ^  ^ 

3-12,  and     marriage  tie  which  are  here  in  hand. 

parallels. 

Moses  found  the  original  law  on  marriage  con- 
siderably relaxed,  and  a  practice  prevalent  which 
permitted  the  husband  to  dismiss  his  wives  on 
almost  any  pretext.  The  reasons  for  so  loose  a 
usage  run  back,  through  the  Egyptian  servitude, 
to  the  polygamy  of  patriarchal  times  and  the 
relation  of  rich  sheiks  to  their  slave  concubines. 
At  any  rate,  the  liberty  of  divorce  was  one  which, 
at  the  giving  of  the  law,  it  was  not  possible  or 
prudent  to  abolish.  Legislation  sought  to  reduce 
its  licence  by  sundry  restrictions.  Thus,  divorce 
was  by  Moses  prohibited,  except  for  some  disco- 
vered '  fault  of  uncleanness,'  as  the  phrase  went ; 
and  even  then  was  not  to  be  legal  unless  regis- 
tered in  a  formal  written  document.  The  divorced 
parties,  moreover,  could  not  re-marry  with  one 
another.  Had  these  rules  been  honestly  kept, 
the  discreditable  laxity  springing  out  of  poly- 
gamy would  have  been  modified  into  something 
like  a  tolerable  system  for  a  civilised  common- 
wealth. But  at  this  point  again  came  in  the 
wretched  system  of  juristic  quibbling.  The  phrase 
*  matter  of  uncleanness '  was  elastic  as  well  as 


Tlie  Seventh  Commandment.  57 

obscure,  and  the  lawyers  stretched  it  to  cover  the  part  i. 
most  frivolous  pretences.  One  school  of  Jewish  second 
doctors  in  Jesus'  time^  had  come  to  teach  that 
a  trifling  neglect  of  household  duty,  immodesty 
in  dress,  or  even  the  arbitrary  preference  of  a 
capricious  husband,  formed  ground  enough  for 
dissolving  the  marriage  tie.  Of  course,  no  sanctity 
could  attach  to  a  union  which,  on  such  slender 
pretexts,  could  be  legally  broken;  and  against 
this  scandal  the  great  Teacher  of  Galilee  sternly 
opposed  Himself.  But  Jesus  went  much  further. 
Instead   of  making   the   Mosaic   legislation  His  I 

basis.  He  went  back  upon  the  original  meaning  I 

of  wedlock    as   a   primitive    ordinance    of  God.  ^ 

Founding  on  the  words  of  God  at  the  creation 
of  Eve,  as  recorded  in  the  earliest  document  of  Gen.  ii.  24 ; 

quoted 

revelation,  Jesus  taught  that,  in  the  purpose  of  Matt.  xix. 
the  Creator,  the  two  sexes  were  made  for  each 
other ;  that  each  mutually  completed  the  other's 
deficiencies,  so  that  both  together  made  up  the 
ideal  of  humanity ;  that  the  holy  bond  of  matri- 
mony was  the  recognition  of  this  fact  in  human 
nature ;  and  that  it  effected  a  perfect  imion  be- 
tween one  man  and  one  woman,  a  union  so 
sacred  as  to  be  inviolable,  so  perfect  as  to  be 
permanent,  a  union  which  left  them,  in  fact,  no 

1  The  school  of  Hillel. 


5  8  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.      longer  two,   but  one  flesh.      Starting   from  this 
SECOND      most  blessed  and  sacred  thought  of  the  Almighty 

ILLUSTRATION    •  .t  n      i-  ±-  P  1  J       r  1 

m  the  nrst  creation  oi  male  and  lemaie, — 
a  thought  which  must  always  lie  at  the  very 
base  of  society,  of  home,  and  of  all  social  and 
domestic  sanctities, — our  Lord  inferred  the  in- 
separableness  of  the  marriage  tie.  He  declared 
the  Mosaic  law  of  divorce  to  have  been  merely 
a  temporary  and  unavoidable  lowering  of  the 
original   standard,   an   exceptional   concession  to 

Matt.  xix.  8.  special  circumstances.  '  For  the  hardness  of 
their  hearts,'  He  said ;  because  a  more  rigjorous 
enforcement  of  the  bond  would  only  have  exas- 
perated a  rude,  untrained  people,  and  made  the 
.evils  worse  which  it  was  meant  to  mend.  Since 
such  facilities  for  divorce  were  not  the  true  law 
of  matrimony,  but  a  regrettable  limitation  of  it, 
they  behoved  to  fall  away  when  the  final  and 
perfected  economy  came,  of  a  Christian  kingdom, 
in  which  the  great  FulfiUer  interprets  the  divine 
will  in  its  integrity,  and  enables  His  subjects  to 
keep  it  in  its  spirit.  Clad  with  divine  authority 
to  republish  the  law  of  God,  Jesus  proclaimed,  as 
the  guarantee  of  wedded  rights  and  the  sanction 
of  wedded  duty  within  His  Christian  kingdom. 

Matt.  xix.  6.  this  principle  :  '  What  God  hath  joined  together, 
let  not  man  put  asunder.' 


ILLUSTKATION 


The  Seventh  Commandment  59 

The  solitary  exception  whicli  He  allowed,  is  part  i. 
an  exception  in  appearance  rather  than  in  reality.  second 
For  if  the  union  of  the  two  sexes  into  one  flesh 
forms  the  essential  characteristic  of  marriage,  then 
adultery  is  not  so  much  a  reason  for  dissolving 
that  union,  as  the  virtual  dissolution  of  it  by 
the  formation  of  another.  It  lies  in  the  nature 
of  the  case,  that  a  tie  which  is  by  anything  else 
indissoluble,  is  by  the  mere  fact  of  unfaithful- 
ness dissolved. 

No  apology  is  required  for  setting  in  as  clear 
a  light  as  possible  the  lessons  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
on  this  subject.  Our  Lord  never  spoke  more  ex- 
plicitly on  anything  than  He  did  on  this ;  on  no 
subject  is  it  of  greater  moment  for  the  well-being 
of  society  that  His  deep  words  should  be  revered 
and  understood.  The  social  state  of  any  people 
will  be  found  ultimately  to  hinge  on  the  purity  of 
its  homes  and  the  place  which  it  gives  to  woman. 
The  jealous  separation  of  the  sexes  in  Asia,  leading 
to  brutality  in  indulgence  and  to  indehcacy  in  re- 
serve ;  the  unmentionable  vices  of  classical  Greece ; 
the  exaggerated  worship  of  celibacy  in  debased 
Christianity,  with  its  painful  reactions  from  the 
fourth  century  to  the  present;  these  examples 
teach  how  much  depends  on  sound  popular  con- 
ceptions of  the  relation  between  the  sexes.    If  one 


6  0  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.  were  asked  to  name  that  brancli  of  public  morals 
SECOND  on  which  the  teaching  of  Jesus  has  wrought  the 
most  wholesome  reformation,  this  should  be  the 
one.  Whatever  modern  Protestant  Europe  knows 
of  household  peace  and  the  sanctities  and  confi- 
dences of  home  life ;  whatever  consecrates  the 
hearth  into  an  altar,  makes  a  Bethel  of  the  house, 
or  gives  to  manhood  a  chivalrous  loyalty  and  to 
woman  pure-heartedness  with  innocent  freedom, — 
all  that  we  owe  to  the  precious  words  of  this 
stainless  Man  of  Nazareth.  It  was  His  teaching 
on  the  marriage  law  which  first  cut  down  by  their 
roots  the  widespread  abuses  of  concubinage  and 
polygamy ;  which  elevated  chastity  to  the  front 
rank  among  virtues ;  which  exposed  the  essential 
criminality  of  every  unhallowed  breath;  which 
raised  woman  to  her  rightful  place,  and  secured 
her  respect  and  liberty  by  throwing  around  her 
the  shield  of  love.  If  for  any  one  thing,  in  the 
present  condition  of  English  society,  we  have 
reason  for  the  devout  thankfulness  which  has  in 
it  no  evil  pride,  it  is  for  this,  that  in  England 
home  is  a  sacred  place.  It  is  for  young  men 
before  all  others  to  keep  it  so.  Let  them  learn 
the  pure  and  manly  lessons  of  Jesus  Christ.  Let 
them  reverence  their  own  bodies  as  the  temples 
of  God.     Let  them  fear  to  lower,  even  by  a  look 


The  Seventh  Commandment.  61 

or  word,  the  fence  wliicli  God's  hand  has  reared      part  i. 
around  the  honourable  and  holy  estate.    Let  them      second 
shrink  from  no  severity  to  chasten,  and  control,  illustration 
and  subdue  themselves.    Above  all,  let  them  seek 
the  moral  strength  and  love  for  the  pure  which 
come  through  vital  union  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
Let  them  wear,  not  on  their  breast,  but  in  their 
heart,  the  red  cross  of  that  blessed  Son  of  Man, 
the  whitest  of  the  sons  of  men :  so  shall  they 
conquer  the  flesh,  and  emulate  in  a  nobler  contest 
the  purest  and  manfuUest  of  the  knights  of  old/ 
so  shall  they  attain  to  walk  with  Christ  in  the 
white  armour  of  an  unsoiled  and  guileless  cha- 
racter.     Into  His   eternal   city   of  transparency 
'  there  shall  in  nowise  enter  anything  that  de-  Rev.  xxi.  27 ; 
fileth,  neither  whatsoever  worketh  abomination.'  cf.  xiv.  4. 
May  He  blanch  us  all  into  perfect  chastity,  and 
preserve  in  us  blamelessness  of  heart  and  life  ! 

^  Cf.  Tennyson's  *  Sir  Galahad '  {Poems),  and  his  treatment 
of  the  same  legend  in  The  Holy  Grail 


THIED  ILLUSTEATION 
OF    OATHS. 


63 


Agai7i,  ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said  by  them  of  old 
time,  '  Thou  shalt  not  forswear  thyself,  but  shall  perform  unto 
the  Lord  thine  oaths.''  But  I  say  unto  you,  Swear  not  at  all; 
neither  by  heaven,  for  it  is  God's  throne ;  nor  by  the  earth, 
for  it  is  His  footstool;  neither  by  Jerusalem,  for  it  is  the  city 
of  the  great  King.  Neither  shalt  thou  swear  by  thy  head,  be- 
cause thou  canst  not  make  one  hair  white  or  black.  But  let 
your  communication  be,  '  Yea,  yea ; '  '  nay,  nay : '  for  ivhatso- 
ever  is  more  than  these  cometh  of  evil. — Matt.  v.  33-37.  Cf. 
Matt,  xxiii.  16-22. 


64 


OF  OATHS. 


IN  two  examples  we  have   already  seen  how      p-^Rt  i. 
Jesus'  teaching  fulfils  the  Jewish  law.       In       third 

_.,.,.  1   •    1      •         1        1  •  ILLUSTRAT 

His  thircl  instance,  which  is  the  law  against  per- 
jury, He  does  not  quote,  as  in  both  the  former, 
from  the  decalogue ;  for  false  swearing  is  a  com- 
pound sin,  breaking  at  once  two  of  the  ten 
commandments.  It  is,  for  one  thinc^,  an  act  of 
profanity,  in  breach  of  the  third  commandment : 
'  Thou  shalt  not  take  the  name  of  the  Lord  thy  Ex.  xx.  7. 
God  in  vain  ;'  it  is  also  an  extreme  act  of  false 
witness,  in  breach  of  the  ninth  :  '  Thou  shalt  not  Ver.  16. 
bear  false  witness  against  thy  neighbour.'  Of 
course,  it  does  not  exhaust  by  any  means  the 
breach  of  either  commandment ;  for  there  is  much 
profanity  on  the  one  side,  and  much  lying  on  the 
other,  which  do  not  take  the  form  of  an  oath. 
Perjury  lies  at  the  point  where  these  two  sins 
overlap  one  another :  it  includes  the  guilt  of 
both.  We  are  accustomed,  in  a  loose  use  of 
words,  to  apply  the  terms  '  oath'  and  '  swearing' 
to  very  many  forms  of  profane  language  besides 

E 


6  6  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.       perjury ;  we  apply  them  popularly  to  curses,  to 
THIRD       blasphemy,  to  ribald  exclamations,  to  the  use  of 
over-strong  epithets,  and  so  forth.     It  is  there- 
fore important  to  make  it  clear  what  the  swear- 
ing of  an  oath  strictly  and  properly  means. 

It  is,  to  begin  with,  a  form  of  witness-bearing. 
Every   man   who  states  what    he    means  to  be 
taken  for  a  fact  is  a  witness.      He  bee  *     ' 
mony  to  something  which  he  professes  1 
and  which  his  hearer  is  supposed  not 
His  statement  is  either  a  true  testimoi  5 

own  knowledge  and  belief  of  the  fact,  or 
Behind  all  such  witness-bearing — that  i  I 

every  word  which  a  man  afiirms  with  tl 
tion  of  being  believed — there  is  to  be  u  i 

one    other   Witness,  always    present,  "V  s 

everything.  Who  knows  what  I  know,  h  t 

I  say,  and  judges  whether  what  I  say  1  3 

what    I    know.      This    heart-searching  5, 

Eev.  iii.  14.  '  the   faithful   and   true,'   is   the   final  'f 

appeal  betwixt   him  who  testifies  and  o 

whom  the  testimony  is  borne.     His  u  d 

knowledge  and  absolute  veracity  form  i- 

mate   test  of  human  truthfulness.       I  .e 

supreme  defender  or  vindicator  of  the  true — 
supreme  avenger  of  the  false.  If  I  am  true,  His 
infallible  testimony  will  in  the  end  corroborate 


Of  Oaths.  67 

and  justify,  however  my  testimony  may  be  now      part  i. 
contradicted   by  false  witnesses,  or  enfeebled  by       third 

T^P   T-  ^   1  1-  T   ILLUSTRATION 

suspicious  appearances,  it  i  am  lalse,  nowever  i 
may  win  credit  for  the  time,  my  lie  must  in  the 
end  be  shattered  before  the  manifestation  of  His 
avenging  truth.  Always,  therefore,  when  men 
speak  in  seriousness  to  a  fact,  there  is  this  awful 
background  to  be  understood.  There  is  One  Who 
knows,  and  Who  will  one  day  declare,  the  truth. 
Always,  men  speak  under  correction  of  the  Om- 
niscient. But  when  the  speaker  expressly  recalls 
to  his  own  and  his  hearer's  remembrance  this 
tacit  appeal ;  when  he  calls  in  as  corroborative 
testimony  the  invisible  and  infallible  Witness  ; 
when  he  solemnly  invites  the  testing  judgment 
of  Almighty  God  to  attest  his  own  suspected 
veracity,  then  he  swears  an  oath.  To  swear  truly 
is  to  bear  honest  witness,  and  back  it  wdth  the 
sanction  of  a  religious  invocation.  To  swear 
falsely  is  to  lie,  and  profanely  to  endorse  the  lie 
with  the  awful  name  of  the  most  true  God  ;  it  is 
to  make  the  authority  of  the  Almighty  and  men's 
fear  of  His  judgment  vouchers  to  gain  belief  for 
falsehood. 

The  prohibition  of  this  compound  sin  Jesus 
found  in  these  words  of  the  national  statute-book  : 
'  Ye  shall  not  swear  by  My  name  falsely,'  which  Lev.  xix.  12. 


6  8  Tlie  Laivs  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.  He  quotes  briefly  thus,  '  Thou  shalt  not  forswear 
THIRD  thyself.'  To  this,  which  is  all  that  stands  in 
.LUSTRATION  j^g^i^i^^^g^  jje  appeuds  the  rider  of  the  Jewish 
doctors.  One  would  have  thought  it  difficult  to 
evade  by  any  gloss  the  force  of  a  law  so  explicit ; 
the  ingenuity  of  Hebrew  casuistry  accomplished 
it.  In  another  book  of  the  Pentateuch,  there 
was  found  a  statute  on  the  subject  of  vows,  which 
Num.  XXX.  ran  thus  :  '  If  a  man  vow  a  vow  unto  the  Lord, 
xxiii.*2i.  '  or  swear  an  oath  to  bind  his  soul  with  a  bond,  he 
shall  not  break  his  word.'  This  is  a  more  limited 
law  than  the  former.  It  refers  to  one  class  of 
oaths  only — oaths  which  vowed  some  voluntary 
religious  service  to  Jehovah.  But  the  jurists 
applied  this  narrower  statute  to  limit  their  inter- 
pretation of  the  more  general  one  ;  and  then  read 
the  larger  law  against  perjury,  as  if  it  ran  thus : 
'  Thou  shalt  not  forswear  thyself,  but  shalt  per- 
form to  the  Lord  thine  oaths.'  The  '  but'  is  em- 
phatic ;  for  the  latter  clause  is  meant  to  circum- 
scribe the  former :  only  the  breach  of  oaths  to 
perform  some  religious  service  is  to  be  reckoned 
perjury.  The  words  '  to  Jehovah '  are  also  em- 
phatic ;  for  if  the  oath  is  not  made  expressly 
by  His  sacred  and  mysterious  name,  to  break  it 
is  counted  no  forsw^earing.  Thus,  at  last,  in  the 
hands   of   quibbling   and   unscrupulous  pedants. 


Of  Oaths.  69 

God's  broad  proliibition  of  false  oaths  of  every      part  i. 
class  dwindled  into  this  surprising  shape  :  '  That       third 
which  thou  hast  expressly  sworn  by  Jehovah's 
name  to  do  unto  Jehovah,  that  thou  shalt  perform 
on  pain  of  perjury,  and  no  more.'     Well  might 
the  indio'nant  voice  of  Jesus  declare  that  a  sta- 

o 

tute-book  which  had  been  wrested  out  of  shape 

and  emptied  of  moral  meaning  by  such  casuistry 

as  this,  had  been  '  made  of  none  effect  by  their  Matt.  xv.  6. 

tradition.' 

Of  course,  teaching  of  this  sort  bore  wretched 
fruit.  Since  no  oath  was  thought  binding  unless 
made  in  the  express  name  of  Jehovah,  a  crowd  of 
minced  oaths  grew  into  practice,  which  came  near 
that  sacred  name  without  actually  pronouncing  it. 
Lies,  backed  with  these  sham  oaths,  bred  a  system 
of  wholesale  and  almost  sanctioned  perjury  in 
common  life.  The  intercourse  of  man  with  man 
lost  all  regard  to  truth,  when  the  holiest  safe- 
guards of  truth  w^ere  habitually  travestied  or 
defied  ;  and  the  people  sank,  as  the  Bedamn 
of  the  present  day  have  sunk,  into  a  '  nation  of 
universal  liars.' ^  Profanity,  too,  kept  pace  with 
falsehood.  If  an  oath  was  no  guarantee  for 
truth,  but  the  accepted  garnishing  for  a  flat  un- 
truth, what  sanctity  could  attach  to  any  words  ? 
1  Thomson,  The  Land  and  the  Booh  (Lond.  1859),  p.  383. 


7  0  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.  Liberal  indulgence  in  the  frivolous  or  profane 
THIRD  use  of  sacred  things  and  names  could  hardly  be 
blamed,  so  long  as  they  kept  clear  of  that  one 
unmentionable  Name,  round  which  it  seemed 
that  all  sacredness  had  superstitiously  gathered 
itself  At  that  day,  therefore,  as  to  this  day,  in 
Syria,  the  reckless  incessant  abuse  of  the  most 
awful  words  was  probably  next  to  universal  in 
common  speech.  '  No  people,'  says  Dr.  Thom- 
son, '  that  I  have  ever  known  can  compare  with 
these  Orientals  for  profaneness  in  the  use  of  the 
names  and  attributes  of  God.  The  evil  habit 
seems  inveterate  and  universal.'  ^  Long  before 
Christ's  day,  a  Hebrew  moralist  had  found  it 
Eccius.  xxiii.    needful  to    say,  with   all   emphasis,    '  Accustom 

9-13.  -^  ^ 

not  thy  mouth  to  swearing,  neither  use  thyself 
to  the  naming  of  the  Holy  One.  .  .  .  There  is 
a  word  that  is  clothed  about  with  death :  God 
grant  that  it  be  not  found  in  the  heritage  of 
Jacob.' 

It  was  not  enough,  however,  to  censure,  as 
others  had  done,  the  false  morality  which  bore 
such  profane  fruit.  Our  Lord  fulfilled  the  law 
by  disclosing  those  principles  which  deeply  under- 
lay it. 

The   perfect   idea   of  human   speech   is,   that 

^   Ut  supra,  p.  191. 


ILLUSTRATION 


Of  Oatlis.  71 

simple  assertion  and  simple  denial  have  in  wit-  part  t. 
ness-bearing  the  force  of  an  oath.  If  both  the  third 
speaker  and  the  hearer  were,  as  God  is,  perfect 
lovers  of  the  truth,  and  if  the  speaker  always 
spoke,  as  he  ought  to  speak,  in  the  presence 
and  under  fear  of  the  all-knowing  Witness  ;  then 
everything  beyond  the  bare  words  '  It  is,'  or  '  It 
is  not,'  would  be  superfluous.  A  perfectly  truth- 
ful witness  obviously  needs  no  oath  to  bind  him. 
He  is  always  '  on  his  honour,'  and  '  tells  the  truth 
as  he  shall  answer  to  God  at  the  great  day  of 
judgment.'  For  the  present,  indeed,  this  ideal 
state  is  so  utterly  and  hopelessly  an  ideal,  that 
the  whole  practice  of  social  and  juristic  language 
must  proceed  on  another  assumption.  Each  man, 
according  to  his  experience  of  human  nature,  will 
fix  for  himself  the  extent  to  which  he  believes  what 
he  hears,  or  the  kind  of  asseveration  which  he 
will  demand  as  a  pledge  of  veracity.  I  fear  most 
men  get  incredulous  as  they  get  older,  and  make 
a  larger  and  larger  discount  on  their  neighbour's 
language  for  wilful  or  unconscious  falsehood.  At 
any  rate,  society  has  to  guard  itself  against  the 
lie  by  every  safeguard,  where  public  interests  are 
involved.  The  cumbrous  phraseology  of  the  law, 
its  system  of  witnesses,  registrations,  oaths,  and 
deeds,  its  penalties  for  perjury  and  forgery,  are 


72  Tlie  Laios  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.  only  so  many  testimonies  to  the  ruin  of  linman 
THIRD  honour,  and  the  facility  with  which  men  lie  at 
the  bidding  of  cupidity  and  of  fear.  But  it  is 
the  work  of  Jesus  Christ  to  recall  humanity  to  its 
ideal,  and  in  His  church  to  educate  men  at  least 
towards  the  perfected  condition.  The  condition 
in  which  oaths  shall  be  needless,  and  speech  be  per- 
fect with  a  '  Yea,'  '  Nay,'  is  at  least  an  approach- 
able condition,  even  if  it  is  not  under  existing 
circumstances  an  attainable  one.  In  general 
society,  or  in  business,  as  in  the  commonwealth, 
it  may  not  be  always  possible  to  dispense  with 
the  oath ;  but  within  the  church  or  select  society 
of  men  who  have  learnt  the  truth  as  it  is  in 
Jesus,  it  ought  to  be  quite  possible.  Within  the 
church,  therefore,  or  new  spiritual  kingdom,  and 
between  men  who  address  each  other  as  fellow- 
subjects  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  old  law, '  Do  not  for- 
swear thyself,'  has  been  superseded  by  the  deeper 
law,  '  Do  not  swear.'  Thus,  at  a  single  stroke, 
Jesus  sweeps  away  from  His  inner  realm  of  puri- 
fied hearts,  along  with  the  whole  system  of  strong 
language,  those  modes  of  paltering  with  truth  by 
which  men  have  always  tried  to  give  their  neigh- 
bour a  guarantee  for  veracity,  and  yet  to  deceive 
him.  Evasive  or  minced  protestations,  white 
falsehoods,    prevarications,    concealments    which 


Of  Oaths.  73 

affect  to  conceal  nothing,  roundabout  and  double  part  i. 
phrases,  all  shabby  cloaks  in  which  falsehood  third 
hides  its  nakedness,  and  the  winding,  underhand 
tricks  of  s^^eech  by  which  words  are  made  to  hide 
or  to  pervert  thought, — all  these  flee  away  before 
the  face  of  an  honest  man ;  and  in  their  room 
He  bids  us  put  a  plain,  straightforward,  earnest 
'  Yes  '  and  '  No.'  One  round  unvarnished  truth 
routs  a  host  of  cowardly  falsehoods.  It  is  an 
unspeakable  advantage  for  the  world,  that  here, 
in  the  midst  of  our  smooth  conventions,  our  im- 
pudent puffs  of  trade,  our  sneaking  fibs,  our  big 
and  windy  asseverations  by  which  bluster  tries  to 
win  credit  for  a  lie,  there  stands  now  continually 
this  Kino;  of  Truth.      In  this  true  Israel,  unlike  Gen.  xxxii. 

.     28  •  cf 

His  first  ancestor  who  wore  the  name,  there  is  john  i.  47. 
no  guile.  His  open,  frank,  sincere  eye  is  a  re- 
buke to  the  world's  duplicity.  Before  the  world, 
which  barely  believes  in  truth  at  all.  He  holds 
up  from  age  to  age  the  noble  and  severe  ideal  of 
an  earth  in  which  each  man  shaU  utter,  and  each 
man  shall  beheve,  the  very  truth,  and  nothing 
but  the  truth.  To  those  who  name  Him  as  their 
Lord,  and  who,  banded  in  His  name,  profess  to 
exhibit  some  faint  forecast  of  what  this  earth 
shall  be  when  all  men  own  His  sway.  He  gives 
but  this  most  plain  word  to  keep  among  them- 


74  Tlie  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.       selves  and  before  the  world  :  '  Let  your  commu- 
THiRD       cation  be,  "  Yea,  yea/'  "  Nay,  nay."  ' 

ILLUSTRATION  p  i  .  -r  -i 

ine  secret  of  such  veracity  as  Jesus  thus  re- 
quires in  His  kingdom, — such  veracity,  I  mean, 
as  makes  an  oath  needless,  because  it  reckons  its 
'  yea '  to  have  the  force  of  an  oath, — lies  in  the 
abiding  fear  of  God.  What  a  witness  who  swears 
gives  me  as  a  guarantee  for  his  truthfulness  is, 
that  he  expressly  invokes  the  presence  and  judg- 
ment of  Almighty  God.  That  is  to  say,  he  gives 
me  just  such  assurance  as  his  faith  in  God 
and  fear  of  Him  when  in  most  intense  exercise 
can  give,  be  it  much  or  little.  The  measure  in 
which  the  swearer  feels  religious  reverence  is  the 
measure  in  which  I  can  trust  his  oath.  Now, 
suppose  a  man  to  stand  ahvays  consciously  in 
the  presence  and  beneath  the  eye  of  God,  and  to 
have  habitually  upon  his  mind  that  reverential 
apprehension  of  the  Almighty  which  the  swearer 
summons  up  for  the  moment;  is  it  not  evident 
that  such  a  man's  naked  word  is  of  the  very 
essence  and  nature  of  an  oath  ?  If,  with  his  lips 
in  words,  the  true  man  never  needs  to  pledge 
his  religious  dread  of  the  Almighty  Detector  and 
Punisher  of  falsehood,  it  is  because  in  his  heart 
he  is  always  speaking  under  that  tacit  dread  of 
Jehovah.     The  state  of  religious  reverence  which 


Of  Oaths.  75 

makes  swearing  solemn  and  gives  it  value  is  the      part  i. 
state  in  which  a  Christian  ought  habitually  to      third 
be.      Hence,  the  more  you  bring  people  into  a  illustration 
condition  of  mind  to  feel  the  sanction  of  an  oath 
and  to  dread  false  swearing,  the  nearer  you  come 
to  abolishing  oaths  altogether.      This  new  law  of 
Christ :  '  Let  "  Yea,"  "  Nay,"  be  like  an  oath,'  is 
just  the  supreme  fulfilment  in  its  spirit  of  the 
old  law :   '  Do  not  perjure  thyself 

It  is  further  to  be  observed,  that  the  same 
religious  reverence  for  God  which  so  effectually 
cures  false  witness  that  it  abolishes  all  need  for 
serious  oaths,  cures  also  the  profanity  of  frivolous 
swearing.  We  saw  at  the  outset  how  the  sin  of 
perjury  embraces  both  falsehood  and  profanity. 
The  falsehood  Jesus  condemns  in  its  roots,  by 
making  every  word  as  sacred  as  an  oath.  The 
profanity  He  tracks  through  every  minced  or 
meaningless  utterance  of  sacred  words.  People 
who  have  no  reverence  for  God  have  often  a 
superstitious  dread,  like  the  Jews,  for  His  name ; 
and  when  they  use  a  flippant  or  insincere  oath, 
they  cajole  their  conscience  by  putting  in  its 
stead  some  word  which  sounds  less  holy.  Such 
people  care  only  for  the  husk  of  the  law,  and 
welcome  any  subterfuge  which  will  let  them 
break  it  in  its  spirit,  while  they  keep  its  letter. 


7  6  The  Lcavs  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.       They  sliun  to  '  take  the  name  of  God  in  vain ;' 
THIRD       but  they  will  profane  anything  in  His  heaven  or 
iLLiJbTEATioN  ^^^^^  witliout  compunctlon,  and  coin  new,  puerile, 
or   unmeaning   oaths,   for   the  mere  pleasure  of 
being  profane.     Of  such  oaths  Jesus  gives  ex- 
amples to  illustrate  two  different  classes. 

In  the  first,  the  swearer  substitutes  for  the 
divine  name  something  more  or  less  connected 
with  God,  which  stands,  at  first  at  least,  as  His 
representative.  Of  this  class  are  the  current 
Hebrew  oaths  cited  by  our  Lord — by  heaven, 
earth,  or  Jerusalem  ;  the  current  English  oath — 
'  by  heaven ;'  Eoman  Catholic  oaths  by  the  cross, 
and  the  saints,  and  the  ansjels,  and  the  Viroin ; 
and  more  remotely  those  modern  oaths,  which 
have  the  distinction  of  being  stupid  as  well  as 
profane — '  by  Jupiter,'  and  the  like.  For  it  has 
been  reserved  for  us  moderns  since  the  Eenais- 
sance  to  make  our  irreverence  contemj)tible,  by 
substituting  divinities  we  do  not  believe  in,  for 
Him  whom  we  still  call  our  God,  yet  choose 
circuitously  to  insult.  In  this  last  case,  the  thing 
sworn  by  has  no  sacredness,  for  it  has  no  existence. 
But  wherever  a  man  swears  by  anything  he  does 
revere,  the  oath  is  reaUy  by  the  Eternal  Himself ; 
for  all  venerable  things  are  venerable  only  through 
their  connection  with  Him.      Heaven  is  sacred, 


ILLUSTRATION 


Of  Oaths.  77 

says  Jesus,  quoting  from  the  splendid  page  of 
Isaiah,  for  it  is  His  throne ;  and  earth,  because 
it  is  His  footstool ;  saints,  because  they  are  His 

'  -^  .      Isa.  Ixvi.  1. 

holy  ones ;  and  the  temple,  because  He  dwells  in 
it.  To  a  heathen  who  saw  in  the  breeze  and  the 
forest,  the  stream  and  the  sun,  symbols  or  shrines 
of  a  separate  indwelling  divinity,  these  natural 
objects  were  truly  divine,  and  fit  to  be  sworn  by. 
The  Greek  who  swore  by  them,  heathen  as  he 
was,  swore  devoutly.  For  us,  there  is  no  less 
sanctity  about  each  part  of  God's  earth  and  heaven 
because  we  see  in  each  not  a  local  and  secondary 
deity,  but  Him  Who '  filleth  all  in  all,'  Who  speaks  Eph.  i.  23. 

Ps.  xxix., 

in  thunder,  and  rides  upon  the  cloud,  Who  bids  civ.  3 ; 

...  ^  ,  Isa.  xix.  1  ; 

the  sun  to  know  its  rising,  and  counts  the  num-  job  ix.  7 ; 
ber  of  the  stars.  Let  us  fill  our  hearts  with 
reverence  for  the  everywhere  present  Father,  as 
His  glory  has  filled  the  earth;  and  we  shall  find 
nothing  common  or  unclean  enough  to  be  the 
subject  of  an  idle  or  irreverent  oath. 

Perverted  oaths  of  the  second  class  are  of 
the  nature  of  imprecations.  In  every  oath  the 
swearer  exposes  himself,  in  case  of  falsehood,  to 
divine  judgment.  But  instead  of  exposing  him- 
self, he  may  devote  to  judgment  some  minor 
forfeit,  something  of  his  own  which  he  puts,  as  it 
were,  in  pawn  to  attest  his  veracity.     This  is  the 


78  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.       character  of  the  last  Hebrew  oath  quoted  by  our 
THIRD       Lord:  'Neither  shalt  thou  swear  by  thy  head;' 

ILLUSTRATION   „„         i  i  - 1       •       i  i    •  i 

as  when   men   swear  by  their  honour,  kings   by 
their   crown,  soldiers   by  their   sword  ;   or  when 
people  stake  their  life,  their  soul,  or  some  such 
dearest  thing,  in  pledge  of  sincerity.     However 
thoughtless  protestations  of  this  sort  may  be,  the 
underlying  reference  always  is  to  God  :  for  as  it 
is  He  Who  alone  can  decide  on  our  veracity,  so  it 
is  He   alone  Who  can  dispose   of  what  is  thus 
rashly  submitted  to  His  decision.     If  the  forfeit 
of  a  false  word  is  to  be  one's  head,  or  soul,  or 
credit ;  who  is  the  lord  of  these,  to  take  them  or 
confirm  them,  but  God  ?     No  man  can  '  make  one 
hair  of  his  own  head  white  or  black.'    And  the  man 
who  fears  God  as  God  ought  to  be  feared,  will 
have  too  profound  a  sense  of  God's  sovereignty, 
and  too   awful   an   apprehension  of  God's  judg- 
ments,   to    imprecate    his    Maker's    intervention 
either  to  sustain  a  lie  or  to  decide   a  bagatelle. 
There  is,  in  fact,  no  cure  for  either  false  or  flip- 
pant swearing,    but   devout    reverence   for    God. 
Fear  God,  and  you  will  fear  to  lie.     Fear  God, 
and  you  will  count  each  serious  word  sacred  as 
an  oath.     Fear  God,  and  you  will  feel  that  there 
is  no  oath  but  one ;  since  all  swearing,  however 
diluted  or  whitewashed,  runs  up  into  an  appeal 


Of  Oaths.  79 

to  the   Almighty    and    Omniscient.     Fear   God,      part  i. 
and  you  will   think  twice  before   you  let  slip  a       third 
random   adjuration  or   a   rash    imprecation :    for  ^^^u^t^^^'tio.n 
every  oath  must  be,  if  irreverent  or  needless,  a 
profanity ;  if  false,  a  perjury.      Therefore  '  swear 
not  at  all.' 

"We  are  now,  I  think,  in  a  position  to  judge 
how  far  our  Lord's  teaching  forbids  all  adminis- 
tering and  taking  of  oaths  whatsoever.  It  cannot 
surprise  us  that  many  have  drawn  that  conclusion 
from  such  sweeping  words  as  are  here  employed. 
We  associate  the  refusal  to  take  a  judicial  or 
allegiance  oath  with  Quakerism  ;  but  in  fact  there 
has  rarely  been  absent  in  any  age  of  the  church 
a  small  section  of  Christians  who  held  this  ground, 
and  numbers  of  the  best  fathers  of  christian  So  Chrysos- 
learning  have  spoken  strongly  in  its  favour,  lact,'  Jerome, 
Moreover,  it  is  unfair  to  deny  that  our  Lord  does 
set  it  before  His  church  as  the  true  ideal  of  His 
kingdom,  that  veracity  and  trust  among  His  fol- 
lowers should  make  everything  beyond  '  yes  '  and 
'  no  '  superfluous,  and  because  superfluous,  wrong. 
That  christian  heart  which  does  not  beat  quicker 
at  the  thought  of  such  a  golden  future,  of  such  a 
realm  of  truth  kept  through  the  fear  of  God,  has 
little  sympathy  with  Christ.  Yet  such  a  super- 
seding of  oaths  can  only  come  from  within,  through 


80  The  Laius  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.  the  spiritual  elevation  of  men  at  large  into  trutli- 
THiED  fulness  and  trustworthiness  ;  not  at  all  by  any 
ILLUSTRATION  external  prohibition.  To  forbid  oaths  by  arbi- 
trary edict,  before  you  have  made  men  honest 
enough  to  be  able  to  do  without  them,  would  be 
to  gain  nothing.  To  keep  such  an  edict  in  the 
letter  of  it,  would  be  to  repeat  the  Hebrew  fault  of 
legalism,  even  though  the  edict  issued  from  the 
lips  of  Christ.  Christ  trusts  us  to  understand 
Him  so  well,  that  we  shall  care  as  little  as  He 
cares  for  any  mechanical  observance  of  His  own 
rules,  but  shall  care  as  much  as  He  cares  to  see 
them  kept  by  the  inward  inspiration  of  the  Spirit. 
The  New  Testament  is  full  of  evidence  that  even 
within  the  Christian  Church  the  time  had  not 
yet  come  for  the  abolition  of  oaths  as  super- 
Matt,  xxvi.  fluities.  Jesus  Himself  responded  to  a  solemn 
judicial  adjuration  by  the  high  priest  in  council, 
w^hen  He  would  respond  to  nothing  else.  St. 
Paul  in  various  passages  thought  fit  to  use  both 
2  Cor.  i.  23,  the  full  form  of  oath :  '  I  call  God  as  a  witness 

Greek ; 

Rom.  i.  9 ;    upon   my  soul,'   and  abbreviated   phrases   which 

Phil.  i.  8 ;  ,  '  .  ^  ^ 

1  Cor.  XV.  31.  meant  the  same  thing.  One  of  the  latest  acts  of 
revelation  is   to  record  the   awful    oath   of  the 

Eev.  X.  6.  angel  who  announced  that  time  should  be  no 
longer.  Nor  can  these  cases  appear  strange  to 
any  man  who  recalls  with  such  solemn  thankful- 


Of  Oaths.  81 

ness  as  befits  the  occasion,  how  it  has  pleased  the      part  i. 
Eternal  Truth,  the  '  I  Am/  to  stoop  to  our  weak-       third 
ness  of  faith,  and,  because  He  could  swear  by  no  ^^^^^^^^^"^^^^ 
greater,  to  put  His  own  existence  in  mysterious  See  Gen. 
pledge   for  the   confirmation   of  the  promises  of  quoted  m 
His  grace  to  mortal  men ;  in  order  that  His  awful    ^  '  ^" 
oath  might  put  an  end  to  all  strife  of  doubt  and 
alarm  within  our  sinful  hearts,  and  bring  to  us 
'  strong  consolation,'   and    a    hope  made  doubly 
sure  by  '  two  immutable  things.'     If  ever  a  bare 
word    ought    to    have    been    enough,    Jehovah's 
ought.      Through  our  sin  of  suspicion,  it  was  not : 
and  Jehovah  sware.     A  man's  bare  word  ought 
always  to  be  enough.     Through  our  sin  of  lying, 
and  the  distrust  which  lying  has  bred,  it  is  not : 
and  true  men  on  fit  occasions  may  swear.     Tor 
in  truth,  as  we  have  seen,  all  witness-bearing  by 
a  true  man  is  tacitly  done  under  a  solemn  sense 
of  the  highest  sanctions  ;  and  when  he  swears, 
he  only  expressly  states  for  others'  security  what 
that  is  which — oath  or  no  oath — has  bound  him 
always  to  speak  the  truth.      Still,  '  it  cometh  of  Ver.  37, 
the    evil.'      Sadly    as    well  as  solemnly  will   a 
thoughtful  man  swear  ;  for  to  make  such  a  con- 
cession to  the  dishonesty  and  incredulity  of  man- 
kind, as  to  assert  in  what  awful  presence,  beneath 
what  judging   eye,   I   bear    my  witness  to    the 

F 


82  Tlu  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.       truth,  is  to  testify  the  humiliation  of  my  kind. 

THIRD       Yet  is  it  to  be  done  frankly  and  fearlessly  when 

ILLUSTRATION  ^^^^  -^^      j^  y^o\M  be  but  a  vain  stickling  at  a 

word  were  we  to  sacrifice  truth  itself,  and  certi- 
tude, and  justice,  and  the  very  ends  of  witness- 
bearing  and  of  speech,  to  a  superstitious  dread  of 
saying  out  like  men  what  all  the  while  we  hide 
reverently  in  our  hearts,  that  God  is  our  witness 
before  Whom  we  stand.  Verbal  Quakerism  is  but 
iCor.xiv. 20.  Pharisaism  over  again.  'In  understanding'  let 
us  *  be  men.' 

'  Howbeit,'  in  falsehood  as  well  as  malice,  let 
us  'be  children.'  The  mean  and  cowardly  sin  of 
wilful  unveracity  infects  the  society,  and  especially 
the  trade,  of  England,  to  an  extent  which  some 
tell  us  grows  from  year  to  year,  and  threatens  to 
rob  us  of  what  was  wont  to  be  an  Englishman's 
boast  among  the  nations.  One  does  not  need  to 
be  a  prophet,  to  see  that  as  the  living  faith  in  a 
personal  Deity,  before  Whom  we  shall  be  judged, 
and  by  Whom  we  shall  be  punished,  decays 
(for  it  seems  to  be  decaying)  out  of  the  heart 
of  our  people,  the  best  safeguard  for  truthfulness 
will  decay.  When  one  knows  that,  alongside  of 
this  decay  of  the  fear  of  the  living  God,  the 
reasons  for  seeking  gain,  and  the  pressure  of 
business  competition,  and  the  facilities  for  knavery 


ILLUSTRATION 


Of  Oaths.  83 

in  trade,  are  all  increasing  round  about  us  ;  how  part  i. 
is  it  possible  to  look  forward  without  a  fear  lest  third 
the  word  of  an  Englishman  may  come  to  be  as 
little  trusted  as  any  word  spoken  on  the  exchange  ? 
It  is  for  Christians  to  set  their  faces  like  a  flint 
against  all  the  current  forms  of  false  witness  ;  to 
prize  and  guard  the  perfect  fair  form  of  truth. 
Let  them  be  for  their  own  part  transparent  as  the 
floor  of  heaven;  and  when  occasion  offers,  let 
them  expose,  and  scorn,  and  flout  the  baseness  of 
every  imposture. 


FOURTH    ILLUSTEATION: 


LEX    TALIONIS. 


85 


Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said,  '  An  eye  for  an  eye, 
and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth:''  but  I  say  unto  you,  That  ye  resist 
not  evil:  but  whosoever  shall  smite  thee  on  thy  right  cheek,  turn 
to  him  the  other  also.  And  if  any  man  will  sue  thee  at  the  law, 
and  take  away  thy  coat,  let  him  have  thy  cloak  also.  And 
whosoever  shall  compel  thee  to  go  a  mile,  go  with  him  twain. 
Give  to  him  that  askeththee;  and  from  him  that  would  borrow 
of  thee,  turn  not  thou  away. — Matt.  v.  38-42. 

But  I  say  unto  you  ivhich  hear,  .  .  .  Unto  him  that  smiteth 
thee  on  the  one  cheek,  offer  also  the  other ;  and  him  that  taketh 
away  thy  cloak,  forbid  not  to  take  thy  coat  also.  Give  to  every 
man  that  asketh  of  thee ;  and  of  him  that  taketh  away  thy 
goods,  ask  them  not  again. — Luke  vi.  27-30. 


ILLUSTRATION 


LEX     TALIONIS. 


THE  three  illustrations  of  Christ's  relation  to  part  i. 
Hebrew  law  wliich  we  have  hitherto  con-  fourth 
siclered,  were  of  a  different  character  from  the 
two  last  which  we  now  approach.  The  laws 
against  injurious  anger,  against  lust,  and  against 
perjury,  are  merely  prohibitory  laws.  They  for- 
bid distinct  acts  of  crime  ;  and  although  Jesus 
has  taught  us  that  they  cannot  be  kept  by  simply 
avoiding  overt  acts,  but  must  have  a  root  of 
obedience  in  the  heart,  it  is,  after  all,  only  a 
negative  species  of  virtue  which  does  no  more 
than  keep  the  passions  under  control,  and  the 
conversation  truthful.  To  the  positive  side  of 
christian  ethics  our  Lord  now  turns  ;  and  in  the 
two  instances  we  have  still  to  consider.  He  pushes 
His  demand  for  positive  beneficence  or  brotherly 
love  to  the  loftiest  and  most  divine  extreme. 

Here,  as  before,  however,  this  new  moralist 
attaches  His  precepts  to  earlier  legislation.  He 
still  appears  as  the  Lulfiller  of  the  old ;  correct- 
ing   the    narrow    and    unkindly    interpretations 

87 


8  8  Hu  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.      which  Jewish  casuistry  had  put  upon  the  primi- 

FouRTH      tive  text,  and  reading  beneath  its  lines  deeper 

ILLUSTRATION  p^^ij^^^ip^gg  ^f  ^^^^^^  thau  they  had  been  able  to 

detect.  Both  the  instances  which  He  selects  are 
limitations  which  had  been  unduly  put  upon 
the  duty  of  mutual  kindness  betwixt  man  and 
man.  In  the  first,  a  principle  of  public  juris- 
prudence had  been  supposed  to  arrest  the  opera- 
tions of  private  charity.  In  the  second,  a  spirit 
of  national  or  selfish  particularism  had  been 
suffered  to  narrow  its  range.  Both  restrictions 
are  by  Jesus'  larger  love  swept  away.  Tor  in- 
juries we  are  to  return,  not  judgment,  but  mercy  ; 
while  the  objects  of  our  charity  are  to  be,  not 
some  men,  but  all  men. 

The  verses  we  have  now  before  us  correct  and 
read  backwards  a  misused  principle  of  public  law 
— the  so-called  y-z^s  talionis. 

The  criminal  code  which  God  gave  to  the  free 

Hebrew  people  fully  recognised  the  principle  of 

Lev.xxiv.i9,  equivalent  retaliation.      It  enacted  as  follows  :  '  If 

20 

a  man  cause  a  blemish  in  his  neighbour,  as  he 

hath  done,  so  shall  it  be  done  to  him ;  breach  for 

breach,  eye  for  eye,  tooth   for    tooth.'     Nay,  it 

Deut.  xix.     went  further  in  the  later  recension  of  it :  'If  a 

Ex.xxi.22ff.  false  witness  rise  up  against  any  man  to  testify 


Lex  Tcdionis.  89 

aojainst   him  tliat  wliicli   is   wrons^,  ....  tlien      part  i. 
shall  ye  do  unto  him  as  he  had  thought  to  have      fourth 
done  unto  his  brother,  .   .   .  and  thine  eye  shall 
not  pity ;  life  for  life,  eye  for  eye,  tooth  for  tooth, 
hand  for  hand,  foot  for  foot.' 

It  must  be  carefully  remembered — what  the 
Jewish  lawyers  forgot,  and  their  forgetting  it  ex- 
plains their  whole  blunder — that  this  statute  was 
part  of  the  criminal  code  of  a  commonwealth,  and 
had  for  its  end  the  satisfaction  of  public  justice. 
It  was  no  rule  for  private  revenge.  It  put  no 
licence  to  retaliate  into  the  hand  of  any  private 
person.  The  law  of  the  state  only,  acting  for 
public  ends  of  justice  and  through  its  own  officers, 
exacted  this  stern  retribution.  JSTor  did  the  law 
exact  this  quid  yro  quo  for  the  sake  or  advan- 
tage of  the  injured  party,  but  solely  for  the  vindi- 
cation of  justice.  When  one  man  injures  another 
in  person,  estate,  or  reputation,  there  is,  of  course, 
a  claim  to  recompense  in  the  shape  of  damages  or 
solatium  to  the  plaintiff.  This  our  English  law 
allows,  and  this  the  Hebrew  law  allowed.  Such 
civil  damages  the  Old  Testament  knows  under 
the  name  of  '  restitution.'  Tor  theft,  for  acci-  cf.  Ex.  xxii. 
dental  fire-raising,  for  trespass  on  private  grounds, 
for  the  loss  of  borrowed  goods,  and  other  descrip- 
tions of  injury,  Hebrew  law  awarded  restitution, 


9  0  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.  which  was  to  be  of  equal  value,  or  double,  or 
FOURTH  fourfold,  or  even  fivefold,  according  to  the  case. 
But  the  jus  talionis,  or  principle  of  retaliation, 
which  I  have  cited,  is  quite  different.  It  belongs 
not  to  civil,  but  to  criminal  law.  It  deals  with 
misdemeanours,  not  injuries.  It  awards,  not 
damages,  but  punishment ;  and  therefore  (which 
is  the  vital  point)  it  is  a  rule,  not  for  private 
plaintiffs,  but  for  the  public  prosecutor.  The 
mistake  of  the  Pharisees'  interpretation,  which 
our  Lord  combated,  was  a  very  gross  one. 
They  read  the  criminal  law  of  the  realm  as  if  it 
had  been  a  moral  rule  binding  on  the  individual 
conscience.  Because  the  law  held  an  aggressor 
liable  to  suffer  a  loss  equivalent  to  that  which  he 
had  inflicted,  therefore  they  thought  every  in- 
jured person  might  lawfully  desire  and  claim  a 
like  retaliation.  This  was  simply  to  legahze  the 
vendetta,  the  oriental  blood-feud.  It  was  nothing 
less  than  the  elevation  of  revenge  into  a  right,  if 
not  into  a  duty. 

Such  a  perversion  of  moral  princij)les  could  find 
no  favour  from  Christ.  But  it  does  not  follow 
that,  because  He  censured  the  transference  of 
retaliation  to  private  life,  therefore  He  meant  to 
censure  its  application  to  criminal  jurisprudence. 
I  suspect  that,  in  point  of  fact,  the  right  of  re- 


Lex  Talionis.  91 

taliation  lies  at  the  basis  of  all  sound  criminal  paet  i. 
jurisprudence.  It  is  plain  enough,  of  course,  that  fourth 
to  carry  out  such  a  right,  as  Mosaic  law  did,  with 
literal  harshness, — maiming  a  prisoner,  for  example, 
in  the  member  which  his  violence  had  maimed, — 
was  possible  only  in  a  barbarous  or  a  very  simple 
state  of  society.  This  was  but  the  grim  expres- 
sion then  found  for  that  rude  sense  of  retributive 
justice  which  lay  in  the  hearts  of  men.  In  the 
awards  of  more  advanced  ages,  as  in  our  Lord's 
day,  some  proportional  commutation  of  loss  or 
suffering,  in  the  form  of  fine,  imprisonment,  exile, 
or  hard  labour,  has  always  been  substituted  for 
the  literal  '  eye  for  eye,'  and  '  stripe  for  stripe.' 
It  ought  unquestionably  to  be  added,  that  those 
more  humane  laws,  which  have  been  dictated 
by  the  christian  spirit  to  modern  christian 
nations,  have  aimed  (with  what  success  it  is  not 
for  me  to  say)  at  other  ends  rather  than  at 
punishment  in  the  strict  sense.  At  present, 
criminal  legislation  seeks,  and  rightly  seeks, 
partly  to  reform  the  criminal,  and  partly  to 
deter  others  from  crime.  But  I  am  not  at  all 
sure  that  we  do  well  to  make  these  the  exclu- 
sive designs  of  punishment,  so  that  punishment 
shall  only  be  felt  to  be  justified  when  it  secures, 
or  at  least  tries  to  secure,  one  or  both  of  these 


9  2  The  Laivs  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.      ends  ;  that,  in  other  words,  we  are  on  safe  ground 
FOURTH      when  we  strip  civil  justice  of  that  more  awful 

ILLUSTRATION  ^  TTi  -•  c        i.   •^      t.-  ^  '    ^ 

and  godlike  prerogative  oi  retribution  which  was 
once  its  most  dreaded  sanction.  The  supreme 
Magistrate  of  the  universe  has  planted  His  own 
white  throne  upon  this  primitive  axiom  of  equity : 
Lev.xxiv.i9; '  As  he  hath  done,  so  shall  it  be  done  to  him.' 

cf.  Matt.  vii. 

2.  It  seems  to  me  that  in  every  human  heart  He 

has  embedded  an  ineffaceable  sense  of  the  fitness, 
that  is,  of  the  justice,  of  this  rule.     When  it  shall 
come  to  the  last  judgment  on  all  of  us,  we  are 
Rom.  xii.  19,  taught  in  the  Sacred  Book,  as  well  as  by  natural 
vii.  10,       *  conscience,  that  God  will  pay  sinners  back  accord- 
Gal,  vi.  7';    ing  to  their  sin,  and  make  each  man  reap  as  he 
6ff.      '    ■   has  sown.     It  is  a  rude  way,  but  it  is  a  way, 
of  putting  the  same  thing,  to  say :   '  An  eye  for 
an  eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth.'     To  make  this 
principle  of  retaliation,  therefore,  a  basis  for  our 
treatment  of  public  criminals,  is  at  least  to  rest 
ourselves  on  the  very  base  of  the  divine  dealing 
with  transgressors  of  His  spiritual  laws.      If  it 
should  be  thought  that  this  is  venturing  too  far 
into  the  most  delicate  and  awful  privileges  of  the 
last  great  Judge,  let  it  be  remembered  that  'the 
powers  that  be  are  ordained '  by  Him,  that  they 
Eom.  xiii     do  not  bear  in  vain  the  sword  with  which  He 
hath  girt  them,  and  that  they  are  His  ministers 


Lex  Talionis.  93 

for  this  very  end,  '  to  execute  wrath  on  him  that  pajit  i. 
doeth  evil'  To  me  it  seems  clearly  enough  fourth 
taught  in  Scripture,  that  to  magistrates  there  has  illtjstratioi^ 
been  delegated  a  limited  portion  of  this  most 
sacred  and  solemn  function  of  judgment  for  the 
avenging  of  wrong  and  the  vindication  of  right, 
not  simply  for  ends  of  correction  or  prevention. 
Were  state  government  an  arbitrary  device  of  men, 
drawing  its  sole  sanction  from  the  voluntary  con- 
currence of  the  community  and  aiming  solely  at 
mutual  protection,  one  could  understand  how  its 
penalties  might  have  no  better  justification  than 
this,  that  they  tended  to  keep  person  and  property 
safe  from  individual  passion.  But  if  the  state  is, 
according  to  the  older  and,  as  I  think,  biblical 
view,  a  divine  institute ;  if  magisterial  authority 
is  lent  of  God ;  if  He  must  always  be  felt  as  the 
unseen  King  by  Whom  kings  reign,  the  ultimate 
and  real  Sovereign  of  every  realm,  then  each 
earthly  throne  and  seat  of  judgment  may  well 
repose  upon  no  meaner  stay  than  the  same 
stern  maxim  of  just  recompense  on  which  stands 
His  own  ;  and  His  vicegerents,  clothed  about  with 
a  more  awful  majesty  than  man  could  give,  may 
have  something  to  do  even  with  this  supreme 
function  of  justice,  with  discharging  upon  the 
criminal,  all  consequences  apart,  the  naked  venge- 


94  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.       ance  of  outraged  law.     When  the  judge  speaks, 
FOURTH      and  the   officer   of  law  strikes,  they  strike  and 
speak,  not  in  the  name  of  the  people,  but  in  the 
name  of  God,  Who  is  the  King  of  kings. 

In  such  retaliation,  however,  there  is  no  hatred. 
As  God  punishes  without  malice,  in  a  just  ^vrath, 
which  is  free  from  personal  irritation,  and  forms 
only  the  shadow-side  of  His  love ;  so  His  civil 
ministers,  who  execute  justice,  ought  to  be  too 
impartial  and  unimpassioned  for  any  revenge  to 
stain  the  purity  of  their  ermine.  It  is  quite 
otherwise  with  private  and  individual  retaliation. 
Men  cannot  be  trusted  to  do  justice  in  their  own 
quarrel,  for  personal  retaliation  generally  means 
spite.  When  Jewish  moralists  taught  that  the 
injured  might  claim  eye  for  eye  from  the  ag- 
gressor, they  found  no  support  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment.    The  same  statute-book  which  had  said, 

Lev.  xix.  18.  '  Eye  for  eye,'  said  also :  '  Thou  shalt  not  avenge 
nor  bear  any  grudge  against  the  children  of  thy 
people.'     This  was  also  the  teaching  at  a  later 

Prov.  XX.  22,  day  of  the  royal  proverb-maker  :  '  Say  not  thou, 
"  I  will  recompense  evil ; "  '  '  Say  not,  "  I  will  do 
so  to  him  as  he  hath  done  to  me."  '  It  was  there- 
fore no  new  commandment  which  our  Lord  op- 
posed to  the  legalized  revenge  of  His  contem- 
poraries, when  He   forbade  them  to  resist  evil ; 


Lex  Talionis.  95 

but  a  primitive  Mosaic  principle  of  morals  which      part  r. 
He  only  rescued  from  neglect  and  set  afresh  in      fourth 
the  forefront  of  social  duty.     His  words,  '  Eesist  ^^^^^^stration 
not  evil,'  contrast  curiously  with  the  terms  of  an 
apostolic  command,  '  Eesist  the  devil ; '  and  the  Jas.  iv.  7. 
contrast  helps  us,  I  think,  to  understand  them 
both.     The  Evil  One  and  all  e\T.l  ones  are  cer- 
tainly   to    be    strenuously    withstood    by    every 
honest   man,  when  he   can  in  any  wise   hinder 
by  his  resistance  their  doing  of  evil.      So   long 
as  evil  to  ourselves  or  others  is  only  intended  or 
on  the  way  of  being  inflicted,  so  long  is  the  time 
for  resistance,  '  striving?,'  as  one  savs,  '  even  unto  Heb.  xii.  4. 
blood.'     But  once   the   evil  act  has  been  done, 
further  resistance  becomes  no  longer  self-defence, 
but  vengeance.     Deeds  done  are  in  God's  keep- 
ins^.     To  strive  that  evil  should  not  be  wroudit 
is  no  more  than  loyalty  to  God,  Whose  soldiers 
we  are  in  this  war  :  but  it  is  soldiers  we  are  to 
be,  not  executioners  ;  and  when  no  other  end  can 
be  served  by  opposition  but  repayment  of  evil  on 
the  evil-doer  and  vengeful  requital,  private  men 
may  not  usurp  His  prerogative  Who  hath  said : 
'  Vengeance  is  mine  ;  I  will  repay.'     To  forget  Rom.  xii.  19. 
this,  is  to  open  the  door  for  unlimited  indulgence 
in  mean  spite,  unjust  contention,  endless  feuds, 
and  all  uncharitableness. 


9  6  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.  So  far,  then,  I  understand  Jesus  to  do  no  more 

PouRTH      than  correct  a  current  misuse  made  of  the  Mosaic 

ILLUSTRATION  (jp-[j^jj^g^]^  jaw,  by  opposing  to  it  a  forgotten  prin- 
ciple of  Mosaic  morals.  This,  however,  is  far 
from  exhausting  His  reading  of  human  duty.  To 
restrain  the  hand  from  returning  a  blow  is  nega- 
tive virtue.  Jesus  adds,  on  the  other  hand : 
'  But  I  say  unto  you.'     What  He  says  unto  us  is 

1  Cor.  xii.  31.  the  '  more  excellent  way'  of  a  diviner  love.  It 
is  a  new  and  backward  reading  of  the  misread  lex 
talionis.  'Eesist  not  evil;  but  whosoever  shall 
smite  thee  on  thy  right  cheek,  turn  to  him  the 
other  also.'  These  will  always  be  strange  words. 
When  He  spoke  them,  they  were  very  novel 
words.  They  were  spoken  by  the  Son  of  a 
heavenly  Father,  right  out  from  the  heart  of  the 
perfect  love.  He  has  need  of  the  new  birth  into 
the  sjime  Father's  likeness  by  a  Spirit  That  is  of 
a  better  world  than  this,  who  would  understand, 
who  would  do  anything  else  than  caricature, 
words  so  purposely  dark  as  these.  Nevertheless 
let  us  try  to  see  a  little  way  into  them. 

I  shall  suppose  that  my  brother  has  done  me 
wrong.  Judgment  says :  Let  it  be  so  done  to 
him.  But  as  between  him  and  me,  two  brothers, 
what  have  I  to  do  with  judgment  ?  There  is  One 
Who  judge th.     What  I,  his  brother,  owe  him  is 


Lex  Talionis.  97 

not  judgment,  but   brother's   love.     If  love  re-      part  i. 

taliate    at    all,    it    must   be   for    public   justice,      fourth 

never    from    private    feeling ;    and    with    public  i^^^^^^tration 

justice,   I,   as   an   individual   complainant,   have 

no  immediate  concern.      I  ought  to  be  willing, 

therefore,   to  bear  the   wrong  without  prejudice 

to    my    brotherliness.      Yes,   and    then  ?     Why, 

then,   love   on   as   before,   so   as  to  be  no  whit 

less  ready  to  bear  a  second  wTong  than  I  was  to 

bear  that  first  one ;  or,  which  is  better,  to  do  him 

in  return,  not  as  much  evil,  but  as  much  good,  as 

he  has  done  me  evil.     If  my  loss  has  been  his 

gain  (for  he  surely  thought  so  at  least  when  he 

wronged  me),  love  bids  me  be  well  content  that 

he  should  gain  at  my  expense.      Love  bids  me,  if 

it  will  do  him  good,  be  content  to  lose  as  much 

again  for  him.     Eepay  his   evil  with   evil  ?     I 

should  rather  repay  him  with  good.      'Eye  for 

eye  ' — his  for  mine  ?     Better  he  should  have  both 

of  mine,  if  they  will  serve  his  turn.    It  was  clearly 

an  injustice  that  my  loss  should  have  been  his  gain; 

for   that  injustice  he  clearly  owes  as   much   as 

he  has  unjustly  taken.     But  private  love  waits  not 

on  general  justice.      So  far  from  that,  love  takes 

her  debtor's  righteous  debt  of  '  eye  for  eye '  on 

her  own  head,  and  pays  '  the  just  for  the  unjust'  iPet,  m.  18. 

Herself  she  punishes,  as  it  were  ;  for  she  loses 

G 


9  8  The  Lav^s  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.      what  the  aggressor  should  have  lost,  suffers  what 

FOURTH      the  evil-doer  should  have  suffered.      Once  love 

ILLUSTRATION  g^g'gj.g^j  ^j^  ^q  offeuder's  hands,  when  he  sinned 

against  her ;  a  second  time  she  chooses  to  suifer 

in  his  stead,  when  she  pays  his  forfeit.     Is  it  not 

clear  that  this  is  just  the  old  law  of  retaliation 

,  turned   inside  out,  read  after  a   quite   new  and 

nobler  fashion  ?     Instead  of  an  equivalent  exacted 

Prov.  XXV.    from  the  evil-doer,  there  is  a  redoubled  kindness 

Eoin.'xS?20.  shown   him,  like   coals  of  fire  !      The   iron  law 

of  legal  justice  is  transmuted  by  this  magic  of 

love  into   a  golden    rale   of   vicarious   sacrifice. 

The  sufferer  is  he  who  repays,  not  the  aggressor. 

Love  bears  in  its  body  the  sins  of  its  enemies ; 

1  John  iv.  8,  and  '  God,'  it  is  written,  '  is  love.' 

This  exquisite  and,  as  one  thinks,  superhuman 
virtue  our  Lord  teaches,  after  His  manner,  by  four 
concrete  examples.  Of  course,  when  an  instance 
is  in  this  way  selected  to  illustrate  a  principle, 
the  instance  is  usually  an  extreme  or  next  to 
impossible  one ;  both  because  a  principle  is  best 
seen  when  pushed  to  its  ultimate  application,  and 
also  because  there  is  less  chance  of  people  blindly 
copying  the  example  when  its  extravagance  drives 
them  to  search  for  some  inner  meaning  in  it.  It 
is  conceivable  that  circumstances  might  occur  in 
which  wise  love  would  counsel  a  man  even  to 


16. 


Lex  Talionis.  99 

offer  his  other  cheek  to  a  blow,  though  the  cir-  part  r. 
cumstances  in  which  Jesus'  own  face  was  struck  fourth 
before  the  Sanhedrim  did  not ;  and  sometimes  it  ^^^^^^^^'^^^^^ 
is  better  to  suffer  spoliation,  as  St.  Paul  advises,  i  Cor.  vi.  7. 
rather  than  go  to  law  with  a  brother.  But  no 
sane  man  can  imagine  it  to  be  kindness  to  give 
to  every  '  sturdy  beggar '  or  every  lazy  scoundrel 
who  wants  to  borrow.  Our  Lord,  like  all  popular 
moralists,  takes  for  granted  that  people  bring  their 
common  sense  at  least  to  His  words ;  and  the  very 
impossibility  of  keeping  them  to  the  letter  is,  I 
repeat,  a  hint  that  men  should  look  to  their 
hidden  spirit.  If  ever  man's  words  were,  Jesus' 
are,  '  spirit  and  life.'  It  needs  only  a  little  skill  John  vi.  63. 
to  see  that,  in  all  these  four  examples,  our  Lord 
is  lookinc^  throusjh  to  the  feelin<^  of  love  in  the 
heart;  that  is,  to  the  utter  absence  of  all  per- 
sonal revenge,  and  the  willingness,  on  the  con- 
trary, to  suffer,  not  this  injury  only,  but  as 
much  more,  for  the  offender's  good.  That  is  the 
essential  moral  state  aimed  at  by  these  injunc- 
tions. Once  that  is  secured,  it  must  be  left  to 
christian  sagacity  to  discover  in  each  case,  and  in 
view  of  many  qualifying  circumstances  here  left 
out,  how  the  offender's  good  may  be  best  attained, 
and  the  desire  of  a  true,  forgiving,  and  patient 
charity  most  successfully  accomplished. 


ILLUSTRATION 


100  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.  Our  Lord's  four  instances  begin  with  the  highest 

FOURTH      injuries,  and  descend  to  the  lowest. 

1.  By  general  consent,  a  blow  on  the  face  is 
the  extreme  of  personal  insults ;  hardly  ever  given 
in  ancient  times  but  to  slaves  ;  peculiarly  resented 
by  an  Oriental ;  only  to  be  wiped  out,  according 
to  the  code  of  modern  honour,  by  blood.  It  can 
hardly  be  doubted  that  our  Lord's  words  flatly 
condemn  the  system  of  duelling,  and  those  ideas 
of  honour  on  which  it  rests.  But  the  spirit  of 
these  words  is  not  open  to  the  suspicion  of  being 
a  craven  spirit.  It  is  this  suspicion,  more,  I 
fancy,  than  anything  else,  which  is  apt  to  dis- 
credit the  teaching  of  this  text  with  generous 
men.  Yet  here,  as  always,  it  is  sin,  not  love, 
which  is  the  real  coward.  Duelling  declined 
from  the  day  when  men  discovered  that  it  was  a 
practice  which  came  easier  to  the  bully  than  to 
the  valiant  gentleman.  It  is  only  needful  to  push 
this  discovery  to  all  parallel  cases,  to  see  that 
he  who  best  obeys  the  rule  of  Jesus  will  be  the 
bravest  man.  To  curb  temper;  to  govern  the 
spirit  of  revenge,  even  under  insult;  to  place 
what  is  better  than  life,  personal  honour,  under 
the  control  of  a  love  which  is  patient  just  because 
it  is  strong — stronger  than  passion :  this  is  true 
valour  and  true  honour.     Jesus  makes  manhood 


Lex  Talionis.  101 

manlier  by  making  it  godlike,  and  teaches  us  a      part  i. 
chivalry  more  noble  than  that  of  knighthood,  by      fourth 

,  ,.  ,,  .  j_i  1  1     1       J.   ILLUSTRATION" 

putting  the  cross,  not  on  the  sword-pommel,  but 
on  the  heart. 

2.  Spoliation,  whether  under  forms  of  law,  as 
St.  Matthew  gives  the  next  case,  or  by  private  Matt.  v.  40. 
violence,  as  in  St.  Luke's  version,  is  a  less  serious  Luke  vi.  29. 
wrong,  because  it  only  affects  property.  Our 
Lord  urges  His  hearer  to  be  prepared,  before  the 
case  of  extortion  goes  to  court,  to  yield  not  merely 
the  cheap  linen  under-tunic  which  is  claimed,  but  x'-^i>^- 
over  and  above,  if  needful,  the  large  outer  plaid  i>«««. 
which  is  the  Oriental's  chief  article  of  dress,  both 
by  night  and  by  day.  The  verse  is  Eastern  in 
colouring  and  concrete  in  form ;  but  it  really 
covers  the  whole  principle  which  rules  the  litiga- 
tion of  Christians.  It  is  under  all  circumstances 
not  perhaps  wrong,  but  at  least  a  defect  of  charity, 
to  go  to  law  either  for  mere  personal  pique,  or 
for  the  single  end  of  private  selfish  gain.  When 
this  has  been  said,  there  remain  plenty  of  con- 
siderations which  in  a  multitude  of  cases  will 
justify  lawsuits.  The  protection  of  society 
asrainst  similar  fraud,  the  interests  or  risjhts  of 
one's  family  and  dependants,  the  dignity  of  one's 
office,  the  mere  assertion  of  rio^ht  agjainst  wronsj, 
nay,  the  very  credit   of  religion,  may  enter  so 


102  Tlu  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.      clearly  into  a  case  as  not  only  to  justify  a  man 

FOURTH      in  invoking  the  aid  of  public  law,  but  even  to 

.LUSTRATION  j,g(^^^^j.g  JjIjj^  ^^  ^^  g^^  ^g  ^\^q  l^gg^;  expTcssion  for 

an  enlightened  and  upright  love.  Only  it  must 
be  at  the  bidding  of  motives  which  not  only  jus- 
tice sanctions,  but  love  commends,  if  it  is  to  be 
worthy  of  the  christian  citizen. 

3.  '  Compelling  a  man  to  go  a  mile  '  alludes  to 
the  practice  of  impressing  runners  or  waggoners 
or  guides  into  the  transport  and  postal  service  of 
government.  Despatch-bearers  in  ancient  Persia, 
as  throughout  the  East,  were  relieved,  like  mes- 
sengers of  the  fiery  cross  in  the  Scottish  High- 
lands, by  committing  their  errand  to  fresh  men, 
who  were  compelled  to  forward  it  to  the  next 
stage  without  delay.  The  custom  gave  origin  to 
a  happy  proverb  for  any  species  of  compulsory 

Mark  XV.  21;  scrvicc ;  such  as  that  of  the  rustic  who  met  the 
26.  procession  which  escorted  our  Lord  Himself  to 

crucifixion,  and  was  forced  to  turn  and  bear  His 
cross  behind  Him.  Servants  and  other  inferiors 
Tinder  harsh,  troublesome,  or  exacting  employers 
are  perhaps  the  nearest  parallel  in  modern  society ; 
and  to  render  willingly  what  is  ungraciously  ac- 
quired is  the  closest  fulfilment  of  this  law  which 
modern  conditions  usually  admit. 

4.  In  the  case  of  beggars,  and  especially  of 


Lex  Talionis.  103 

borrowers,  the  injury  done  descends  to  the  lowest  part  i. 
possible.  Of  course,  the  begging  or  borrowing  fourth 
must  be  both  unreasonable  and  vexatious,  other-  ^^^^^^^^'^^on 
wise  there  would  be  absolutely  no  injury  at  all ; 
but  even  when  it  is  so,  there  is  no  compulsion, 
except  a  moral  one,  upon  the  person  solicited. 
In  this  case,  it  is  not  refusal  to  give  or  to  lend 
which  is  prohibited ;  for  refusal  may  be,  and  very 
often  is,  a  duty.  It  is  such  refusal  as  proceeds 
from  unwillinmess  to  obli^-e,  or  is  caused  or  aG^crra- 
vated  by  impatience  and  irritation.  Such  refusal 
is  wrono:,  because  it  indicates  a  want  of  endurance 
or  of  self-denial  in  one's  love  ;  and  plainly,  giving 
may  be  so  done  as  to  argue  exactly  the  same  want. 
To  give,  as  the  unjust  judge  did,  merely  because  Lukexviii. 
the  petitioner's  pertinacity  teases  you,  or  because 
his  presence  offends  you,  not  only  may  be  no 
charity,  but  may  actually  argue  as  great  a  lack 
of  charity  as  refusing  would.  There  are  few  de- 
partments of  social  duty  in  which  it  is  harder  for 
us  to  be  wisely  kind  than  in  this.  On  the  one 
hand,  beggars  may  be  worthless  and  borrowers 
cheats,  so  that  it  is  difficult  to  give  and  not  do 
harm  by  giving:  yet  even  in  the  worst  of  our 
cities  there  are  deserving  poor ;  and  we  have  all 
need  to  hear  the  old  words  of  the  son  of  Sirach: 
'  Eefuse  not  the  prayer  of  the  wTetched,  and  turn  Ecclus.  iv.  4-6. 


104  Tlic  Laics  of  tlic  Kingdom. 

PART  I.  not  thine  eyes  from  the  needy,  lest  he  complain 
FOURTH  against  thee  ;  for  He  Who  has  made  him  heareth 
his  petition,  when  with  sorrowful  heart  he  com- 
plaineth  against  thee/  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
as  hard  to  withhold  alms  with  the  firm  and  un- 
provoked temper  of  true  kindness,  when  beggars 
are  teasing  and  borrowers  shameless :  yet  even 
the  rude,  the  whinino:,  the  dishonest,  and  the 
thankless,  are  our  brothers ;  and  if  we  owe  it  to 
them  not  to  encourage  vice  by  heedless  liberality, 
we  also  owe  it  to  them  not  to  let  our  refusals  be 
dictated  by  annoyance  or  embittered  by  surliness. 
It  ousjht  to  be  easier  than  it  is  for  comfortable 
people  to  bear  with  the  starving  and  friendless 
poor,  even  when  their  mendicant  cry  is  an  un- 
seasonable interruption  to  business  or  sport ;  even 
though  they  are  a  little  too  eager  to  tell,  and  too 
slow  to  cease,  the  voluble  story  of  their  distress. 
It  is  often  our  duty  to  refuse ;  but  it  is  a  duty 
of  which  love  should  take  all  the  pain,  making 
it  to  them  as  painless  as  possible  in  the  doing 
of  it. 

Thus,  with  intimate  knowledge  of  our  common 
life,  does  Jesus  trace  the  workings  of  revenfreful 
irritation  down  from  the  buffet  which  burns  upon 
the  cheek,  to  the  neighbour  who  only  pesters  us 
with  his    borrowing.     Ever}'T\'here   He    bids   us 


Lex  Talionis.  105 

substitute  for  the  passion  which  calls  for  retalia-  part  i. 
tion,  that  nobler  charity  which  repays  evil  with  fourth 
good.  Shallow  or  selfish  hearts  are  apt  to  say  illustration 
this  is  to  put  a  premium  on  aggression,  and  meekly 
invite  a  repetition  of  it.  No  doubt  there  are 
foolish  ways  of  yielding  a  literal  obedience  to 
this  law,  which  w^ould  have  no  better  effect  than 
to  provoke  a  second  blow  on  the  other  cheek. 
Yet  love  is  wise,  not  foolish ;  and  often  wiser  in 
its  generous  confidence  than  selfishness  in  its  cal- 
culating suspiciousness,  which  it  terms  prudence. 
God  has  made  human  souls  more  susceptible,  on 
the  whole,  to  kindness  than  to  any  other  moral 
force ;  and  such  kindness  as  this,  which  can  not 
only  forgive,  but  suffer,  offence,  is  fit  to  melt  the 
rock  and  to  tame  the  brute.  Good,  by  the  simple 
and  lovely  strength  of  its  own  goodness,  does  in 
the  end  overcome  evil ;  or  if  it  does  not,  it  is 
because  evil  cannot  be  overcome.  At  all  events, 
when  a  patient  lover  of  men  is  trying,  by  un- 
affected meekness  and  unrequited  generosity,  to 
wear  out  the  evil-doino^  of  the  bad  and  shame 
them  into  penitence,  he  is  only  taking  the  course 
which  both  God's  wisdom  has  prescribed  and 
God's  own  love  has  followed.  It  is  not  by  His 
words  only,  but  much  more  by  His  acts,  that 
Jesus    has   fulfilled  this    law  which   substitutes 


106  Tlie  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.      generosity  for  revenge.     In  His  person  we  see 
FOURTH      the  supreme  example  of  His  own  rule.     We  see, 

ILLUSTRATION    .  f,  ,  ^.     ,     . 

m  lact,  the  Divinity  descending  to  repay  the 
injuries  of  His  creatures,  not  with  just  vengeance, 
but  with  the  self-sacrifice  of  love;  taking  not 
only  our  buffet,  but  the  penalty  for  the  buffet 
too ;  and  trusting  to  draw  all  hearts  unto 
Himself  through  no  charm  but  the  charm  of 
love  lifted  up  for  us  on  its  self-chosen  painful 
cross. 


0  suffering  Son  of  God  !  Best  Interpreter  of 
Thine  own  law !  We  have  made  Thee  to  serve 
with  our  sins ;  yet  Thou  hast  taken  the  form  of 
a  servant,  and  ministered  to  our  necessities.  We 
sought  to  rob  Thee  of  Thine  honour ;  but  Thou 
didst  make  Thyself  poorer  still  for  us,  and  of  no 
reputation.  We  smote  Thee  on  the  right  cheek 
by  our  sins ;  and  Thou  hast  turned  the  other  also 
to  the  chastisement  of  our  peace.  Daily  we  come 
to  importune  Thee  by  endless  petitions  and  calls 
for  mercy ;  but  to  every  one  who  asks  Thou 
givest  liberally  without  upbraiding,  and  from 
the  guiltiest  Thou  turnest  not  away.  So  hast 
Thou  heaped  upon  all  our  heads  Thy  coals  of 
fire ! 

Teach  us,  dear  Lord,  the  might  of  Thy  love, 


Lex  Talionis.  107 

and  persuade  our  cold,  unloving  hearts  to  dare      part  i. 
to  copy  Thee  in  Thy  magnanimity  and  in  the      fourth 
ventures  of  Thy  generosity :  being  to  each  other  illustration 
as  meek  and  patient  and  imwearied  in  service  as 
Thou  hast  been  to  all  of  us  ;  for  Thy  Name's  glory, 
and  Thy  Kingdom's  sake.     Amen. 


FIFTH  ILLUSTEATION : 
WHO    IS    MY    KEIGHBOUK? 


109 


Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said,  '  Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighhour,  and  hate  thine  enemy:'  but  I  say  unto  you,  Love 
your  enemies,  bless  them  that  curse  you,  do  good  to  them  that 
hate  you,  and  pray  for  them  which  despitefully  use  you,  and 
persecute  you ;  that  ye  may  be  the  children  of  your  Father 
Which  is  in  heaven :  for  He  maketh  His  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil 
and  on  the  good,  and  sendeth  rain  on  the  just  and  on  the  unjust. 
For  if  ye  love  them  ivhich  love  you,  what  reward  have  ye  f 
do  not  even  the  publicans  the  same  ?  And  if  ye  salute  your 
brethren  only,  what  do  ye  more  than  others  ?  do  not  even  the 
publicans  so  ?  Be  ye  therefore  perfect,  even  as  your  Father 
Which  is  in  heaven  is  perfect. — 31att.  v.  43-48. 

But  I  say  unto  you  which  hear,  Love  your  enemies,  do  good 
to  them  which  hate  you,  bless  them  that  curse  you,  and  pray 
for  them  which  despitefully  use  you.  .  .  .  For  if  ye  love  them 
which  love  you,  what  thank  have  ye?  for  sinners  also  love 
those  that  love  them.  And  if  ye  do  good  to  them  which  do 
good  to  you,  what  thank  have  ye  f  for  sinners  also  do  even 
the  same.  And  if  ye  lend  to  tJiem  of  whom  ye  hope  to  receive, 
what  thank  have  ye  f  for  sinners  also  lend  to  sinners,  to  re- 
ceive as  much  again.  But  love  ye  your  enemies,  and  do  good, 
and  lend,  hoping  for  nothing  again;  and  your  reward  shall 
he  great,  and  ye  shall  be  the  children  of  the  Highest:  for  He 
is  kind  unto  the  unthankful  and  to  the  evil.  Be  ye  therefore 
merciful,  as  your  Father  also  is  merciful. — Luke  vi.  27,  28, 
32-36. 


no 


WHO    IS    MY    NEIGHBOUR? 


npHESE  verses  form  our  Lord's  fifth  and  clos-      part  i. 
-^      ing  example  of  His  general  principle,  tliat       fifth 

-U-.  ,,.,  .  -,  r-pini       ILLUSTRATION 

His  relation  to  previous  laws  was  one  of  fulfil- 
ment, not  of  destruction.  Substantially,  ttiey 
deal  with  the  same  subject  as  the  verses  last 
considered.  It  is  still  the  law  of  love  which 
Jesus  vindicates  in  its  breadth  against  pharisaic 
limitations.  It  is  still  the  duty  of  returning 
good  for  evil  which  He  urges  against  the  selfish- 
ness of  mankind.  But  the  limitation  against 
which  He  now  protests  is  not  the  same  as  the 
limitation  against  which  He  has  just  been  pro- 
testing. Last  time,  the  mistake  lay  in  this,  that 
private  love  was  limited  as  to  its  action  by  a 
principle  of  criminal  law.  This  time  the  mis- 
take is,  that  private  love  was  limited  as  to  its 
objects  through  a  policy  of  national  separatism. 
In  the  former  case,  the  question  was :  When 
does  my  neighbour  deserve  to  be  treated  with 
severity,  not  kindness  ?  Here  the  question  is : 
Who  is  my  neighbour  ?  This  will  appear  if 
111 


112  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.       we  examine  the  popular  rule  quoted  and  criti- 
FiFTH       cised  by  our  Lord. 

When  the  Hebrew  doctors  said,  '  Thou  shalt 
love  thy  neighbour,  and  hate  thine  enemy/  they 
took  the  first  half  of  this  rule  from  a  golden 
Lev.  xix.  18.  sentence  in  Leviticus  :  '  Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbour  as  thyself.'  The  New  Testament  makes 
a  great  deal  of  that  summary  of  duty.  No  fewer 
Matt.  xix.     than  three  several  times  do  we  find  our  Lord 

19,  xxii.  39 ; 

Luke  X.  27,   appeal  to  it  as  embracing  the  pith  of  the  whole 

second    table  of  the  decalogue ;  and    after    His 

Eom.  xiii.  9 ;  example  it  is  twice  cited  in   the  letters  of  St. 

Gal.  V.  14 ;  ^ 

Jas.  ii.  8.  Paul,  and  once  by  St.  James.  Of  course,  thought- 
ful students  of  the  Hebrew  canon  must  always 
have  felt  it  to  be  one  of  its  profoundest  ethical 
axioms.  But  the  current  teaching  of  our  Lord's 
day  broke  down  the  force  of  the  glorious  old 
saying,  not  only  or  so  much  by  forgetting  the 
important  words  'as  thyself,'  which  made  man's 
selfishness  the  very  measure  of  his  charity,  as  by 
narrowing  that  area  of  neighbourliness  within 
which  charity  is  commanded.  The  question  of 
casuistry  by  which  entangled  consciences  sought 
to  evade  a  duty  far  too  wide  for  them,  was  the 

Luke  X.  29.  question  a  lawyer  put  once  to  Jesus :  '  Who  is 
my  neighbour  ? '  There  was  a  great  deal  in  the 
historical  attitude  of  the  Hebrew  people  to  sug- 


Who  is  my  Neighbour  ?  113 

gest  such  a  question.      Every  small,  vigorous,  and      part  i. 
united  people  within  which  the  sense  of  clanship       fifth 

.  J  1  J.  1        r  •      1  J        i.    ILLUSTRATION 

IS  strong,  and  whose  struggle  lor  independent 
national  life  has  forced  it  to  look  on  surrounding 
nations  as  hostile,  is  tempted  to  read  the  law  of 
kindness  as  binding  only  between  fellow-country- 
men. With  the  Hebrew,  this  temptation  was 
stronger  than  in  the  case  of  any  other  race.  Israel 
was  always  a  people  apart.  The  condition  of  its 
national  existence  was  isolation.  So  much  was 
this  the  case,  that  in  the  original  statute  '  thy 
neighbour '  meant  simply  '  thy  brother  Jew.' 
Not  because  it  excluded  Gentiles  of  purpose,  but 
just  because,  being  given  to  Jews  as  a  Jewish 
code,  it  took  no  notice  whatever  of  foreigners.  A 
special  clause,  indeed,  was  added,  bringing  within 
the  scope  of  this  law  of  love  every  stranger  who 
dwelt  with  them  in  the  land  as  a  proselyte  Lev.  xix.  34. 
from  heathenism  to  Judaism.  But  as  to  their 
private  relations  with  foreigners  who  were  not 
proselytes  but  heathens,  the  law  gave  no  such 
instructions,  simply  because  it  forbade  them  to 
have  relations  with  heathen  foreigners  at  all.  It 
contemplated,  as  the  normal  condition  of  Israel, 
an  entire  seclusion  of  the  Jew  from  any  private 
social  intercourse  with  the  uncircumcised.  The 
individual  Jew  was  to  have  no  '  neighbours '  save 


114  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom, 

PART  I.  Jews.  Even  the  commonwealth  was,  as  far  as 
FIFTH  possible,  to  preserve  in  its  external  politics  the 
same  separatist  attitude.  Its  relations  with 
neighbouring  states  were  to  be,  as  nearly  as 
practicable,  no  relations  at  all.  Intercourse  with 
conterminous  heathendom  was  sure  to  mean  in 
any  case  temptation,  and  most  probably  corrup- 
tion. Peace  there  might  be  with  idolatrous 
states — with  Egypt,  with  Phoenicia,  with  Assyria ; 
but  it  was  to  be  the  peace  of  indifference,  not  of 
alliance.  Throughout  the  whole  of  Jewish  his- 
tory, any  drawing  close  of  the  bonds  of  political 
friendship  between  the  chosen  people  and  adjacent 
viii.  5^14 ;     heathen  empires  was  looked  on  by  pious  Jews  as 

Hos.  vii.  8-  .-  ^  _       .  ^         ^.         .  .  ,       ,.    . 

16.  a  perilous  and  un- Jewish  policy,  false  to  the  divme 

vocation  of  the  race.  Nay,  in  so  far  as  any 
other  policy  than  one  of  isolation  was  enjoined, 
it  was  a  policy  of  hostility.  Close  in  on  the 
flanks  of  Hebrew  territory  lay  several  border  tribes 
somewhat  allied  to  Israel  in  blood.  Contact 
with  these  was  inevitable ;  but  with  them  the 
danger  of  interfusion  was  greatest,  and  the  terms 
to  be  held  with  them  were  explicitly  prescribed. 

Deut.  xxiii.   ISTonc  of  the  race  of  Ammon  or  of  Moab   could 

3-6. 

become  a  Jewish  proselyte ;  and  while  a  milder 
Ibid.  ver.  7.  tone  was  used  of  the  more  cognate  Edomites,  the 
17-19.      '    tribe  of  Amalek  was  devoted  to  such  annihilation, 


Wlio  is  my  Neighhour  ?  115 

that  its   very  memory   was  to   perish.     Within      part  i. 
Hebrew  territory  itself  there   lingered   remnants       fifth 
of  the  powerful  aboriginal  races  which  it  had  been  i^^^'^tration 
Israel's  mission  to  dispossess.     With  them  they 
were   to   be   on  still  worse  terms.     No  friendly 
league  was  ever  to  be  contracted.      On  the  con- 
trary, Israel  was  bound  over  by  its  earliest  con-  Ex.  xxiii. 

32  33  • 

stitution  to  pursue  the   Canaanitish  tribes  with  Num.  xxxiii. 

50-56  • 

relentless  and  unquenchable  hostility.  Whatever  Deut.  Vii.  i- 
public  reasons  of  weight  there  were  to  justify  this  (cf.^josh.  x. 
rule  of  national  politics,  it  never  could  be  meant  "  '  '' 
for  a  moment  to  dictate  the  feeling  of  individuals 
or  prescribe  how  in  private  life  a  Jew  was  to 
treat  a  Philistine.  At  the  same  time,  it  was 
perfectly  natural  that  this  isolation  from  other 
races  imposed  on  the  Hebrews,  their  jealous  fear 
of  defilement  from  foreign  contact,  the  religious 
conceit  bred  by  such  separatism,  and  the  national 
feud  kept  up  with  their  next  neighbours  from 
generation  to  generation,  should  all  have  formed 
a  fitting  soil  for  the  growth  of  bigotry,  pride  of 
race,  superciliousness,  and  hereditary  hatred.  It 
is  extremely  intelligible  how  the  ordinary  Jew 
should  never  have  passed  beyond  the  earliest  and 
narrowest  sense  of  the  word  '  neighbour,'  but  have 
continued  to  restrict  his  whole  sympathy  and 
human  interest  to  people  of  liis  own  land,  religion, 


116  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.  and  blood.  It  is  to  the  glory  of  the  Jewish  race, 
FIFTH  indeed,  that  there  were  men  at  many  a  moment 
ILLUSTRATION  ^^  ^^^  history  who  could  separate  between  the 
hostility  which  they  owed  to  idolaters  as  public 
enemies  of  the  theocracy,  and  the  humanity  which 
they  owed  to  them  as  men.  Statesmen  and  seers 
whose  moral  stature  rose  as  high  as  that  of  Moses, 
or  David,  or  Daniel,  or  Nehemiah,  might  never 
suffer  their  patriotic  and  religious  zeal  to  dege- 
nerate into  personal  hate ;  but  this  could  not  be 
looked  for  from  common  natures.  The  average 
Jew  of  Saul's  day  smote  Amalek  with  the  ferocity 
of  individual  passion,  just  as  the  average  Jew  of 
Christ's  day  spurned  the  fellowship  of  the  Greek 
with  a  bitter  personal  scorn.  It  is  the  inevitable 
consequence  of  all  separatism,  prerogative,  and 
monopoly  ;  of  every  advantage  which  sets  man 
above  man,  race  above  race,  and  which  either 
may  not  or  cannot  be  made  the  equal  property 
of  all, — that  from  such  a  root  springs  the  bitter 
fruit  of  uncharitableness.  This,  however,  was 
not  all.  Having  gone  this  length  in  cir- 
cumscribing humanity,  the  next  step  was  an 
easy  one.  Once  the  Jew  read  his  law  in  this 
sense :  '  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  Jew,  and 
hate  thy  Gentile  enemy,'  it  was  natural  to  go  a 
little  further,  and  exclude   from  love's  pale  even 


Who  is  my  Neighhour  ?  117 

Jews    who    became    as    Gentiles    through    their      part  i. 
enmity.      If  every  foreigner  and  heathen  is  my       fifth 

n  ^        j_l  i.    i.  J    ILLUSTRATION 

enemy,  as  well  as  an  enemy  to  the  state,  and 
therefore  to  be  hated,  not  loved  ;  why  may  not 
my  fellow-clansman  become  more  of  an  enemy 
to  me,  do  me  more  hurt,  and  deserve  more  hate, 
than  any  far-off  Gentile  of  them  all  ?  It  is  simply 
as  an  enemy  of  mine  that  any  man — Jew,  why 
not,  as  well  as  heathen  ?—— deserves  no  love.  Such 
a  man  is  no  more  my  '  neighbour.'  He  is  to  me 
as  a  heathen  man.  He  is  to  be  hated.  So 
reasoned  in  these  Jews  the  cruel  human  heart 
that  is  in  all  of  us.  So  it  thrust  its  petty  selfish- 
ness into  the  very  large  and  loving  law  of  God. 
Words  which  He  meant  to  be  wide  enough  to 
hold  humanity,  are  contracted  to  just  as  narrow 
a  circle  of  near  friends  or  comrades  as  any  man 
chooses ;  and  the  divine  law  is  travestied  by  a 
word  so  inhuman,  so  devilish,  as  this  :  '  Thou 
shalt  love  thy  neighbour,  and  hate  thine  enemy.' 

The  immediate  protest  of  Jesus  against  this 
rider  to  the  words  of  the  law  taught  nothing 
which  was  absolutely  new.  It  is  rather  common 
to  hear  love  for  enemies  spoken  of  as  a  precept 
peculiar  to  the  New  Testament — a  glory  of  Chris- 
tian morals  with  no  parallel  elsewhere.    The  truth 


118  TJie  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.      is,  that  even  in  the  "book  of  Exodus  the  law  of 
fIfth       Moses   commanded    eveiy  Hebrew   to   help   his 

ILLUSTRATION   ^^  -^      ^.^      g^^^-^g  .        .  jf       ^^^^      ^^^^      ^^^-^^^ 

Ex.  xxiii.  4,  *^  .  ,  ,     ^ 

5.  enemy's  ox  or  his  ass  going  astray,  thou  shalt 

surely  bring  it  back  to  him  again.  If  thou  see 
the  ass  of  him  that  hateth  thee  lying  under  his 
burden,  and  wouldest  forbear  to  help  him,  thou 
shalt  surely  help  him.'  The  kindly  spirit  which 
dictated  these  small  injunctions  to  every-day 
acts  of  neighbourliness  is  precisely  the  spirit  of 
the  great  Teacher  on  the  mount ;  and  by  a  tribe 
of  simple  Orientals,  such  small  precepts  would 
be  better  understood  than  any  wider  principle  of 
ethics.  In  a  more  literary  age  of  Hebrew  his- 
tory, the  same  spirit  reappears  in  an  admonition 
against  even  secret  exultation  over  an  adversary's 
Prov.  xxiv.  mishaps.  '  Eejoice  not,'  said  the  Preacher, 
the  protest  '  when  thine  enemy  falleth,  and  let  not  thine 
29,  30.'  '  heart  be  glad  when  he  stumbleth ;  lest  the  Lord 
see  it,  and  it  displease  Him.'  This  is  very  noble 
teachincr,  and  Hebrew  annals  can  show  as  noble 
examples.  The  brotherly  forgiveness  of  Joseph, 
the  meekness  of  Moses,  and  the  magnanimity  of 
David,  who  was,  if  any  man  was,  the  typical 
hero  of  the  Hebrews  :  these  gave  to  their  country- 
men examples  of  generosity  in  the  treatment  of 
private  enemies  brilliant  enough  to  be  worth  a 


Who  is  my  Neiglibour  ?  119 

thousand  moral  maxims.       When  Jesus,   there-       part  t. 

fore,  reiterated  His  vigorous  commands :  '  Love       fifth 

your  enemies,    bless    them  that    cnrse   you,    do  ^illustration. 

good  to   them   that    hate   you,'    and  so   on.   He 

only  put  into  sharper  and  more  memorable  words 

a  law  which  had  been  from  the  becyinninof.    Moses 

would  have  recognised  in  these  words  his  own 

rub,  David  his  own  practice  ;  and  heathendom 

itself   has   had  its   teachers    who    in    substance 

taught :   '  Thou   shalt    love   thy  neighbour,  even 

though  he  be  thine  enemy.' 

What  was  more  characteristic  in  the  teaching 
of  Jesus  as  a  Hebrew  moralist,  was  the  breaking 
down  of  that  national  particularism  which,  from 
the  formation  of  the  commonwealth,  had  made 
every  Jew,  indeed,  the  Jew's  neighbour,  but 
every  foreigner  his  foe.  It  was  not  in  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount,  it  was  in  the  weighty  parable 
of  the  good  Samaritan,  spoken  later,  that  He  Luke  x.  30  ff. 
expressly  unbound  the  term  '  neighbour/  and 
levelled  the  walls  of  religious  bigotry,  of  race 
jealousy,  and  of  national  seclusion,  in  order  to  set 
man  in  brotherhood  with  man  all  the  world  over. 
I  am  not  sure  that  this  clear  and  firm  assertion 
of  the  universal  brotherhood  of  men,  implying 
as  it  does  their  essential  spiritual  equality,  is 
not  one  of  the  most  siixnal  services  which  His 


120  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdoin. 

teaching  rendered  to  the  moral  thouc^ht  of  the  world. 
Whatever  vagaries — stupid  or  frantic  vagaries — 
men  may  play  with  these  catchwords,  '  fraternity' 
and  '  equality ; '  however  such  terms  may  become 
the  Shibboleths  of  political  fanaticism,  or  cany 
to  the  frightened  ears  of  society  recollections  of 
carnage,  rapine,  and  conflagration  :  their  origin 
at  least  is  divine.  They  are  of  christian  descent ; 
they  carry  by  right  a  blessed  and  beneficent  sig- 
nification. That  every  man  is  every  other  man's 
equal  in  God's  sight,  has  already  abolished  many 
a  gross  shape  of  bondage ;  it  will  yet  abolish 
shapes  less  gross.  That  human  brotherhood  is  as 
wide  as  humanity,  has  already  brought  the  ends  of 
the  earth  into  a  more  cosmopolitan  relationship ; 
it  will  yet  federate  the  nations  into  a  compacter 
unity.  That  each  man  owes  loving  help  to  every 
other  man  who  needs  it  and  to  him  most  who 
is  nearest  to  him,  has  already  created  christian 
philanthropy ;  and  it  may  yet  teach  us  how  to 
bind  social  classes  in  gentler  and  more  elastic 
bonds  of  mutual  support  than  political  economy 
has  been  able  to  weave.  Christianity  is  not 
responsible  for  all  the  folly  and  blundering  which, 
like  froth  from  ferment,  has  been  bred  by  chris- 
tian ideas  in  human  brains.  But  for  this  it  is 
responsible  :   for  the  teaching  which   suffers  no 


WJio  is  my  Neighbour  ?  121 

private  man,  on  any  plea  of  personal  or  public  part  i, 
enmity,  or  of  class  estrangement,  or  of  alien  fifth 
blood,  or  of  hostile  faiths,  or  of  simple  selfish 
indifference  and  luxurious  ease,  to  stand  still  and 
see  another  man  suffer  without  relief,  or  perish 
without  an  effort  to  save  ;  for  this  it  is  respon- 
sible, because  this  is  the  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ. 
I  have  said  that  it  is  in  the  story  of  the  good 
Samaritan  that  this  part  of  Christ's  teaching  comes 
out  most  fully  ;  but  I  find  its  ground  and  germ 
in  what  is  here  said  about  the  fatherly  love  of 
God.  For  what  does  He  say  ? — *  Love  your 
enemies,  and  do  them  good,  as  well  as  your 
friends,  in  order  that  your  love  may  be  like  God's. 
God  is  your  Father  in  heaven.  It  is  the  son's 
mark  and  glory  to  be  like  his  father.  Now  the 
chief  characteristic  of  the  divine  goodness  is,  that 
it  is  over  all,  wide  as  His  works,  embracing  evil 
as  wxll  as  good.  So  wide,  so  unconfined,  so  free 
from  selfishness  and  passion,  ought  your  love  to 
be,  if  you  would  carry  on  your  soul  the  family 
features  of  the  sons  of  God.'  In  this  teaching 
lies  the  germ  of  all  christian  teaching  on  the 
subject.  Is  God  our  Father  in  heaven  ? — then 
are  we  all  brethren.  Does  He  show  love  to  all 
men  with  paternal  impartiality  ? — then  are  we  all 
in   His   sight  essentially  equal.     Those  barriers 


122  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.      which  are  raised  by  ancestry,  climate,  education, 
FIFTH       or  society,  to  sunder  brother-men,  and  make  them 
ILLUSTRATION  ^^  ^_^^^^  ncighbours  to  each  other,  oppose  no  ob- 
stacle to  His  equal  bounty.  Who  is  the  Maker 
and  the  Parent  of  us  all ;  neither  ought  they  any 
longer  to  limit  our  good  offices.     Here,  in  Jesus, 
mankind  has  found  its  common  Father  ;  mankind 
becomes,  in  consequence,  one  family  of  brothers. 
Ver.  45.  To  drive  His  lesson  home,  Jesus  reaches  round 

for  some  simple  popular  example  of  God's  impar- 
tial goodness  :  He  finds  it  in  sun  and  rain.  Sun 
and  rain  are  neither  the  most  precious  nor  the 
most  astonishing  proofs  of  the  kindness  of  the 
Father  for  His  evil  no  less  than  for  His  good  chil- 
dren. The  Speaker  Himself,  sent  of  the  Father 
to  bear  our  sins,  to  lighten  our  darkness,  and  to 
revive  our  death  ;  Christ,  sending  abroad  to  all 
men  everywhere  the  same  glad  words  of  recon- 
ciliation, like  far-shooting  shafts  of  spiritual  light, 
and  pouring  out  on  all  men  His  quickening 
Spirit,  like  showers  that  water  the  earth — He  was 
Tit.  iii.  4,  and  is  the  grandest  instance  of  God's  impartial 
*  pliilanthropy,'  and  the  love  which  blesses  the  evil 
and  the  good.  But  the  time  was  not  then  come 
when  this  instance  could  be  published,  nor  were 
His  audience  prepared  to  hear  it.  Jesus  reads  a 
lesson  from  an  humbler  book,  which  lies  for  ever 


mw  is  my  Nciglibour  ?  123 

open  before  all  men's  eyes.  Let  those  who  tread  pakt  i. 
God's  earth  and  look  np  into  His  sky  day  after  fifth 
day,  without  a  thought  of  what  these  so  silently 
are  preaching,  hearken  to  this  Interpreter  of 
nature.  Many  a  year  through  had  He  hearkened 
to  the  '  still  small  voice '  of  earth  and  sky,  as  He 
walked  about  the  white  slopes  of  upland  iSTazareth  ; 
and  now  He  tells  us  what  message  had  been 
borne  to  Him  from  His  Father  on  every  sun- 
beam— what  words  came  dancing  to  the  earth 
in  every  raindrop.  Has  God  left  His  children 
without  a  witness  to  His  love  ?  Was  no  message 
sent  to  the  great  old  world  before  Christ  came  ? 
none  to  the  uncounted  heathens  of  to-day  ?  none 
to  the  emigrant,  the  seaman,  the  souls  who  hear 
no  Sabbath  bell  and  have  no  \\Titten  Word  to 
read  ?  ^ay,  verily ;  but  '  in  that  He  did  good.  Acts  xiv.  17. 
and  i^ave  us  rain  from  heaven  and  fruitful  seasons, 
filling  our  hearts  with  food  and  gladness,'  God 
hath  not  'left  Himself  without  witness.'  The 
sweet  and  bounteous  influences  of  the  seasons, 
in  their  ceaseless  and  impartial  bestowal,  have 
always  told  in  a  speech  which,  without  a  voice,  Ps.  xix.  1-4. 
goes  to  the  end  of  the  world,  how  the  heavenly 
Father  loveth  even  the  world  of  men  who  hate 
Him,  and  hath  blessings  for  such  as  curse  Him. 
Take  your  stand  on  some  glorious  day  in  June 


124  Tlic  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.       on  a   rising  ground,  with  a  fair  broad   English 
FIFTH       landscape  spread   around  you,   bathed   in  warm 

ILLUSTRATION  t    i  ^  r-v  i  -i      -.  o         -, 

sunlight.  Overhead  the  unconfined  and  generous 
sky  bends,  large  and  full-armed,  as  if  to  brood  in 
nursing  love  over  the  growing  earth — oldest  and 
best  emblem  of  the  all-nurturing  Father.  Away 
on  every  side,  to  farthest  line  of  vision,  rolls 
wave  on  wave  of  ridge  and  hollow,  field  and 
copse,  upland  and  meadow.  Men  have  parcelled 
it  out,  not  without  old  bickerings  and  bloodshed 
long  forgotten,  and  the  ancient  landmarks  they 
guard  with  jealousy.  But  the  sunlight  heeds  no 
fence.  With  impartial  warmth,  it  lies  on  either 
side  the  hedge  which  parts  the  lands  of  rival 
squires,  nor  cares  for  the  ancestral  feud  which  has 
made  them  foes.  It  falls  on  the  hind  at  work, 
and  his  heart  is  lightened.  It  falls  through  the 
cottage  pane  on  the  sick  girl's  coverlet ;  and  as 
she  turns  twenty  times  in  an  hour  to  the  glad 
light,  she  calls  herself  better  than  she  felt  last 
night.  It  falls  on  the  children  at  play  on  the 
village-green,  and  they  shout  the  louder  for  it  in 
their  mirth.  It  falls  on  the  song-bird  on  the 
bough,  and  he  whistles  out  his  soul  for  joy.  Has 
it  no  message,  that  glory,  like  the  smile  of  God, 
Eccius.  xiii.  which  '  lookctli  upon  all  things '  to  bless  them  ? 
Wait,  then,  till  the  heavy  rain-cloud  comes  trail- 


JJ^lio  is  my  Neighbour  ?  125 

ing  across  country  before  the  soutli-west  breeze,      part  i. 
and  you  shall  see  how  impartially  it  too  will  fall.        fifth 
Yonder  lie  two  fields,  with  but  a  thread  of  darker 
green  to  part  them.      That  to  the   right  has  a 
churl   and   a   cheat   for   its  owner,   a  man  who 
imderpays  his  hinds,  grudges  the  poor  their  alms, 
can  rob  the  widow  and  cajole  the  orphan,  a  man 
whose   little   godless  soul  worships  the   clay  he 
owns,  yet  stints  the  very  soil  its  just  and  needful 
nourishment.      The   neighbouring   field   is    tilled 
with  patient   and   generous    care   by   an   honest 
man,  whose   name    the    cottagers   name   with  a 
blessing.      See  now,   how   the   swift    shadow   of 
God's  cloud   sw^eeps  nearer,  and   the   big   drops 
begin  to  fall !     Would  you  have  it  bend  from  its 
straight   course   to   fertilize   the   furrows   of  the 
righteous  man,  and  leave  the  other's  unwatered  ? 
He  Who  steers  its  way  as  His  breath  propels  it,  is 
the  Father  of  both,  and  His  impartial  love  pours 
as  lavish  treasure  on  the  enemy  as  on  the  friend. 
What   does  this  impartiality  of  nature  tell  us  ? 
What  glad  tidings  of  its  Almighty  Maker  does  it 
bring  to  His  human  children  ?      That  everything 
is  moved  by  blind  machinery,  and  has  behind  its 
iron  laAvs  no  feeling  personal  heart  at  all  ? — that 
either  there  is  no  God,  or  at  least  no  revelation 
of  His  character  in  the  rigid  system  of  physical 


126  Tlu  Zaivs  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  I.       forces  whicli  we  call  nature  ?     The  dreary  creed 
FIFTH       of  scientific  materialism,  into  which  so  many  seek 

ILLUSTRATION    .        ,  j.         i       .  •  i  -        i    l^ 

just  noAV  to  shut  us  up,  is  as  much  against  those 
filial  instincts  of  our  human  heart,  which  cry 
aloud  after  a  God  Who  is  our  Father,  as  they  are 
John  xiv.  against  Him  Who  was  manifest  in  history  to  show 
us  the  Father,  that  our  hearts  might  be  satisfied. 
Or  shall  we  say  that  God,  Whose  sun  shines  so 
equally  on  all,  cares  nothing  for  either  good  or 
bad,  and  hath  neither  love  nor  hate  ?  That  were 
no  gospel  for  any  man  to  hear,  nor  a  lesson  any 
man  could  believe.  No  ;  but  impartial  nature 
has  this  good  news  to  tell,  that  the  Father  in 
heaven  cares  for  all  His  children,  and  is  patient 
with  the  evil  among  them,  and  is  not  willing  to 
punish,  but  waits  to  pardon.  To  the  good  He  is 
good,  delio'htinc^  to  bless  ;  to  the  evil  also  He  is 
not  evil,  but  meanwhile  good,  being  slow  to  anger. 
By  forbearance,  by  showing  the  loving-kindness  of 
His  heart,  by  doing  good  unweariedly  '  to  the  un- 
thankful and  the  evil,'  the  Father  strives  to  win 
back  His  children ;  in  them  He  seeks  to  provoke 
some  faint  shame,  some  feeble  desire  after  their 
2  Pet.  iii.i5;  Father  and  His  favour.  As  the  '  beloved  brother 
^ '  ^  '  •  '  pg^iji '  j-^as  written  to  us,  this  common  goodness  of 
God  to  unjust  and  evil  men  is  meant  to  lead 
them  to  repentance,  and  is  therefore  a  testimony 


JVlio  is  my  Nciglibour  ?  127 

wide  as  the  eartli  to  the  largeness  of  the  Father's      part  i. 
love  ;  a  very  gospel  of  mercy  and  hope  to  the       fifth 
whole  race  ;  a  sermon  in  every  tongue   on  this  i^^^^tkation 
text,  that  God  is  One  Who  will  bless  them  that 
curse  Him,  and  do  good  to  those  who  hate  Him. 
The  words  of  this  gospel  according  to  nature 
shine  in  new  clearness  and  speak  more  intelli- 
gibly, now  that  we  have  also  the  better  gospel 
according  to  Jesus  Christ.      Another  Sun  is  risen 
on  our  spiritual  night,  and  it  is  on  the  evil  His 
rays  fall.    'God  commendeth  His  love  toward  us,  in  Rom. v. 8-10. 
that,  while  we  were  yet  sinners,  Christ  died  for  us. 
.   .   .  When  we  were  enemies,  we  were  reconciled 
to  God  by  the  death  of  His  Son.'     The  messenger  Cf.  Rev. 

xiv.  6,  c. 

who  flies  abroad  in  the  midst  of  our  sky,  shed-  John  i.  9. 

ding  spiritual  light  on  every  man,  tells,  but  tells 

more  mightily,  the  same  lesson  as  the  sunshine. 

He  proclaims  the  Father's  catholic  charity.  His 

unrestricted  love  for  His  fallen  and  evil  children, 

and  bids  all  men  everjrwhere  alike  have  hope,  and 

arise,  and  return.      Another  rain,  too,  has  begun 

to  drop  from  the  Father's  heaven.      It  droppeth 

on  the  just,  but  also  on  the  unjust.    '  If  ye,  being  ^.^^^^;  ^^' 

CI.  JMcitti, 

evil,  know  how  to  give  good  gifts  unto  your  chil-  vii.  11. 
dren,  how  much  more  shall  your  heavenly  Father 
give   the  Holy  Spirit  to  them  that  ask  Him  ! ' 
Kain  of  gracious  influence  on  arid   and  sterile 


128  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  1.      hearts  ;  rain  to  revive  the  weary  and  fructify  the 

FIFTH       fruitless ;  rain  to  be  had  for  the  asking,  impartial 

ILLUSTRATION  ^^^  ^^^^  j     BehoM   the   nature-lesson  of  Jesus 

re-read  in  His  own  history :  on  the  cross  and  at 
Pentecost  the  old,  old  message  that  God  loves  all, 
even  His  enemies,  became  a  new  message,  laden 
with  new  gladness  and  charged  with  a  new  power. 
Johnxm.34;  The  children  of  God  are  bound  to  love  one  an- 
aiid  1  John  Other,  as  He  has  loved  them.  For  them  it  is  not 
enough  to  love  as  the  world  loves — lovers,  family, 
and  friends.  Beautiful  as  such  love  is,  which  our 
Father  puts  into  evil  hearts,  it  is  not  to  be  the 
limit,  though  it  is  the  centre,  of  christian  affec- 
tion. The  love  which  comes  of  instinct  and  is 
measured  by  nearness  of  neighbourhood,  is  good. 
The  love  which  has  a  moral  root,  acts  on  principle, 
and  keeps  no  measure,  but,  like  God,  can  love  the 
worst  and  deny  itself  for  the  meanest ;  that  is 
better,  is  best  of  all.  Up  to  this  godlike  attitude 
of  self-denying  and  generous  charity  our  Lord 
calls  His  followers.  To  follow  Him  thither ;  to 
copy  His  style  of  loving;  to  stoop,  to  bear,  to 
forgive,  to  seek,  to  save,  to  overflow  and  reach 
out,  to  embrace  all  men  in  our  hearts,  and  spend 
for  them  our  lives ;  this  is,  saith  Jesus,  chris- 
tian perfection.  It  is  to  be  not  less  noble,  less 
generous,  or  less  munificent  than  the  Father  of 


Wlio  is  my  Neighhour  ?  129 

all.     This  is  a  giddy  height.      Can  human  feet      part  i. 
stand  as  high  ?    Up  Jesus  will  lead  us  by  easiest       fifth 
steps  :  by  lessons  of  sunshine  and  cloud ;  by  doing  ^^^^^^ration 
of  plain  and  simple  works ;  by  saluting  men  who 
are   not   our   brethren ;   by  cultivating  a   larger 
courtesy  and  a  less  partial  kindness  in  daily  inter- 
course ;  by  learning  to  pray  for  our  persecutors ; 
by  calling  every  man  a  neighbour,  and  being  his 
good  Samaritan  :  thus,  along  a  not  too  steep  yet 
arduous  enough  path  of  moral  tuition,  will  He 
guide  us,  if  we  will  try  to  follow,  till  even  our 
feet  also  stand  upon  the  dazzling  pavement  of 
celestial  virtue,  and  we  too  are  become  '  perfect, 
even  as  our  Father  Which  is  in  heaven  is  perfect.' 


PART  II. 

THE   LAW  OF    SECRECY   IN 
RELIGION. 


131 


THE  PEINCIPLE: 
BEFOEE    GOD,    NOT    MEN. 


133 


Take  heed  that  ye  do  not  you?' alms  I''  righteousness'}  before 
men,  to  he  seen  of  them:  otherwise  ye  have  no  reward  of  your 
Father  Which  is  in  heaven. — Matt.  vi.  1. 


IM 


THE  PRINCIPLE :  BEFORE  GOD, 
NOT  MEN. 

THE  first  eighteen  verses  of  the  sixth  chapter      part  u 
form  one  connected  paragraph  of  our  Lord's         the 
discourse,  which  in  its  substance  complements  the 
last  paragraph,  and  in  its  structure  resembles  it. 

In  the  last  paragraph,  Jesus  laid  down  His  Matt.  v.  i* 

48. 

central  principle  at  the  outset :  that  His  relation 
to  the  earlier  or  Mosaic  legislation  w^as  not  de- 
struction, but  fulfilment ;  and  this  principle  He  Ver.  17. 
illustrated  by  a  series  of  five  examples.  The 
exactly  parallel  structure  of  this  next  paragraph  vi.  i-is. 
is  perhaps  concealed  from  the  reader  by  an  error 
in  the  received  text.  If,  with  the  oldest  mss. 
and  the  best  critics,  we  read  for  '  alms '  in  the 
opening  verse  the  more  general  word  '  righteous- 
ness,'^ new  light  will  be  cast  on  the  whole  pas- 

^  So  Tischendorf,  Meyer,  Tholuck,  and  others  read,  with  B, 
D,  Vat.,  Sin.,  etc.  It  is  possible,  liowever,  that  since  HpIV 
( =  righteousness)  is  the  standing  Old  Testament  term  for  alms, 
and  in  that  sense  is  sometimes  rendered  by  the  LXX.  iXiyifiotrvvn, 
the  variation  of  reading  in  this  verse  may  not  indicate  any  real 
variation  in  the  sense.  May  not  both  Greek  words  represent  the 
same  Aramaic  word,  either  in  the  mind  of  the  evangelist  or 
in  the  usage  of  our  Lord  Himself  ? 

135 


136 


The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 


PART  II.  sage.  For  then  we  have  first  of  all  the  general 
THE  principle  laid  down  as  before — the  principle  that 
righteousness  is  not  to  be  done  for  the  purpose 
of  display ;  and  on  this  there  follows,  as  before, 
a  series  of  examples.  The  three  subdivisions  of 
what  the  later  Jews  termed  '  righteousness,'  using 
that  word  technically  in  the  sense  of  religious 
service,  were  almsgiving,  prayers,  and  fasting; 
and  to  each  of  these  in  succession  our  Lord 
applies  His  central  principle. 

As  these  two  large  sections  of  the  Sermon  thus 
correspond  in  their  structure,  so  they  have  also  a 
deeper  relation  to  one  another.  The  word  '  right- 
eousness '  in  the  opening  verses  of  this  section 
may  not  exactly  answer  to  the  same  word  '  right- 
See  V.  17-20.  eousness  '  as  used  in  the  opening  verses  of  the  last 
section ;  because  it  appears  to  be  borrowed  from 
the  phraseology  of  the  Pharisees  and  to  bear  a 
conventional  and  narrower  signification  :  it  is  the 
'  righteousness '  which  made  up  in  their  estima- 
tion a   devout   or   relio-ious    character.       But   at 

o 

least  this  choice  of  the  same  word  to  start  with 
afresh  must  be  meant  to  look  back  upon  the 
starting-point  of  the  discussion  just  closed ;  and 
we  are  driven  to  search  for  some  inner  connec- 
tion between  the  thoughts.-^     We  find  it,  I  think, 

^  If  the  reading  ^£  (after  ?r/;o<rs;^£r£),  wliicli  Tiscliendorf  and 


Before  God,  not  Men. 


137 


in  this,  that  what  the  preceding  section  did  for 
the  rule  of  righteousness,  this  section  does  for  its 
motive.  What  Jesus  has  been  doino^  is  to  cor- 
rect  the  literal  interpretation  of  the  law  of  right- 
eousness, which  is  also  its  narrow  interpretation, 
by  reading  the  law  in  its  spirit,  and  showing 
that,  so  read,  it  is  very  broad.  In  one  example 
after  another.  He  has  read  beneath  the  letter  of 
each  commandment  its  informing  spirit  of  love ; 
and  as,  time  after  time,  He  used  this  spirit  of 
love  as  a  canon  of  interpretation,  the  law  has 
become  in  His  hands,  instead  of  easier,  harder  to 
be  kept.  For,  in  pointing  to  the  spirit  of  each 
action  as  the  true  seat  of  its  goodness  or  badness, 
rightness  or  wrongness.  He  has  widened  the  area 
of  law,  till  it  covers,  not  behaviour  only,  but  in- 
tention ;  thousfht  as  well  as  deed  ;  the  inward 
even  more  than  the  outward  life  of  men.  We 
are  thus  led  to  feel  that,  even  when  we  do  what 
is  undeniably  a  good  or  righteous  action,  it  is  not 
the  action  alone  we  have  to  look  to,  but  the 
motive  from  which  it  proceeds.  From  the  sphere 
of  law,  so  understood,  we  naturally  pass  to  the 
motive  of  obedience.  Now,  amonsj  human  actions 
there  were  three  sorts,  which  the  somewhat  ascetic 

Meyer  adopt,  and  wliich  has  the  authority  of  the  Sinaitic,  be 
correct,  such  a  connection  will  have  a  textual  ground. 


138 


The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 


and  very  artificial  piety  of  the  time  insisted  on 
as  acts  of  eminent  goodness.  Other  things  might 
be  right  to  do ;  but  to  give  alms,  say  prayers,  and 
keep  fasts,  composed  the  'righteousness'  of  saintly 
or  exceptionally  good  people.  It  was,  indeed,  a 
miserable  narrowing  of  human  righteousness,  that 
righteousness  whose  ideal  was  not  short  of  the 
perfection  of  God,  to  shut  it  up  within  three  such 
formal  exercises  of  religious  worship ;  but  this 
mistake,  which  later  Judaism  shared  with  all  sys- 
tems in  which  the  relictions  element  has  outOTOwn 
the  moral,  Jesus  had  already  sufiiciently  exposed. 
Another  evil  remained.  When  righteousness  is 
shrivelled  down  to  a  set  of  religious  usages,  these 
usages  themselves  tend  to  become  sapless  and 
unreal.  The  same  evaporation  of  the  spirit  of 
love,  and  the  same  preference  for  the  letter  over 
the  inner  meaning  of  the  law,  which  led  men  to 
call  alms,  prayers,  and  fasts  their  '  righteousness,' 
led  them  also  to  fast,  pray,  and  give  alms  for  the 
praise  of  men  rather  than  from  the  love  of  God. 
Current  Jewish  limitations  of  the  sphere  of  right- 
eousness Jesus  had  corrected  by  the  former  prin- 
ciple of  spirituality  in  the  law's  interpretation; 
the  current  perversion  of  motive  in  such  right- 
eousness as  they  did  recognise  He  now  corrects 
by  the  principle  of  secrecy  in  religion. 


Before  God,  not  Men.  139 

It  is  not  the  visibility  of  one's  sacred  duties      part  ii. 
to  which  Jesus  takes  objection ;  for  in  an  earlier        the 
part  of  this  Sermon  He  has  already  tauc^ht  that 

■^  -^  ^  See  IVIatt.  v. 

the  good  deeds  of  His  disciples  must  be  not  only  14-16. 
visible,  but  luminous  ;  nor  luminous  only,  but  con- 
spicuous. It  is  the  purpose  to  attract  attention 
which  is  condemned.  That  vitiates  the  act  by 
substituting  a  selfish  for  a  noble  motive.  That 
is  to  put  man  in  God's  place  of  judgment.  That 
therefore  robs  the  doer  of  all  merit  in  the  eye  of 
God.  To  do  your  righteous  acts,  says  Jesus,  in 
the  presence  of  men,  in  order  to  be  looked  at  by 
them  as  a  spectacle,^  is  to  forfeit  the  reward  of 
the  heavenly  Father.  Few  words  in  Holy  Writ 
are  more  fundamental  or  searchim^  than  this ; 
for  there  lies  at  the  root  of  such  a  principle  this 
still  deeper  truth,  that  the  merit  of  a  good  action 
consists  not  in  its  motive  merely,  but  in  the  god- 
liness of  its  motive.  Eighteousness  is  not  just 
an  affair  betwixt  man  and  man,  as  it  appears  to 
be  in  the  half-pagan  philosophy  of  our  ethical 
schools.  Even  the  schools,  indeed,  demand  that 
some  nobler  and  less  interested  motive  than  the 
love  of  applause  should  inspire  men  with  virtue. 
But   the   ethic   of  Jesus  goes  further.     For  an 

^  6':.a.Fr,yot.i  implies  being  looked  at  *  cum.  studio  et  admira- 
tione.'    See  Tittmann,  de  Synonymis  N.  T.  pp.  120,  121. 


140 


The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 


audience  of  admiring  bystanders,  He  is  not  con- 
tent to  substitute  —  as  our  systems  do  —  the 
approval  of  the  good  man's  own  conscience,  or 
an  abstract  love  of  virtue  for  its  own  sake,  or  an 
enlightened  regard  to  the  welfare  of  the  greatest 
number :  what  He  does  substitute  is  God.  God 
is  the  sole  audience  and  the  sole  spectator  of  the 
Christian.  Himself  unseen.  He  sees  the  hidden 
process  of  emotion  and  purpose  which  precedes 
action,  as  well  as  the  act  itself;  and  as  He  was 
our  Lawgiver  at  the  first.  Whose  will  each  actor 
is  bound  to  consult,  so  shall  He  be  our  Judge  at 
1  Sam.  ii.  3.  last,  by  Whosc  sentence  actions  must  be  weighed. 
According  to  christian  teaching,  therefore,  reli- 
gion is  the  soul  of  morals.  The  conscience  of 
each  man  is  withdrawn  from  the  crowd  of  on- 
lookers who  observe  and  criticise  his  outward 
conduct.  He  is  set  free  from  their  censure  and 
the  craving  to  please  them.  He  is  placed  in  imme- 
diate and  confidential  relations  with  the  supreme 
Onlooker,  Who  is  too  remote  to  be  touched  by 
earthly  misconceptions,  for  He  is  in  heaven ;  yet 
not  so  remote  as  to  be  out  of  sympathy,  for  He 
is  our  Father.  The  rule  of  duty  ceases  to  be  an 
uninformed  voice  of  our  own  nature,  or  a  code 
generalized  from  the  experience  of  m.ankind,  or 
the  average  moral  sentiment  of  a  community.     It 


PRINCIPLE. 


Before  God,  not  Men.  141 

becomes  the  revealed  law  of  the  divine  command-  part  i 
ments.  Eighteousness  comes  to  mean  just  obe-  the 
dience  ;  such  obedience  as  a  child  will  pay  to  the 
expressed  will  of  a  perfect  Parent.  Merit/  in  the 
divine  eyes,  will  be  in  proportion  to  the  single- 
ness, purity,  and  unselfishness  of  the  man's  desire 
to  serve  and  please  his  heavenly  Father.  And 
morality,  '  righteousness,'  whether  in  its  narrower 
or  wider  sense,  becomes  a  sacred,  secret,  devout 
thing,  hid  away  in  that  holy  of  holies  of  the 
religious  nature  in  which  worship  dwells.  Is  it 
needful  to  point  out  how  entirely  this  carrying  of 
ethics  up  into  godliness  cuts  away  by  the  roots 
that  sham  holiness  of  one-sided  religionists  of 
which  we  have  the  type  in  Pharisaism  ?  It  not 
less  cuts  down  on  the  other  side  the  shallow  uti- 
litarian morality  of  our  own  day,  which  thinks  it 
can  do  without  any  basis  outside  of  humanity — 
the  righteousness  which  has  parted  company  with 
godliness.  Unnatural  in  Christ's  eyes  must  be 
any  severance  of  these  two  ;  for  to  Him  these  two 
have  one  life :  godliness  is  the  root  of  righteous- 
ness, and  righteousness  the  fruit  of  godliness. 

The  bearing  of  all  this  on  our  Lord's  warning 
in  the  text  is  not  far  to  seek.      Since  that  only 

^  Merit,  that  is,  not  in  the  sense  of  claim  on  the  reward,  but 
of  moral  fitness  to  receive  it. 


142 


The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 


THE 
PRINCIPLE. 


which  is  done  out  of  a  regard  to  God's  approval 
is  well  done,  it  follows  that,  in  strict  fact,  the 
Christian  in  his  actions  knows  nothing  of  any 
other  witness.  To  him,  so  far  as  any  practical 
influence  on  his  moral  state  is  concerned,  privacy 
and  publicity  are  words  without  meaning.  He  acts 
the  same  before  men  as  alone  ;  for  he  is  never 
'  alone '  from  that  one  Spectator  Whom  he  seeks 
to  please,  and  Who  sees  in  secret ;  nor  can  the 
company  of  a  crowd  increase  or  lessen  his  desire 
to  please  that  one  Spectator.  One  Presence  fills, 
possesses,  dominates  the  man  whose  passion  it  is 
to  be  righteous  before  the  face  of  his  Father  in 
heaven.  But  let  him  once  become  so  conscious 
of  the  observation  of  others,  that  with  his  desire 
to  please  the  judging  Father  and  win  His 
reward,  there  shall  mingle  some  desire  to  please 
also  his  human  witnesses,  and  win  their  admira- 
tion ;  instantly  his  singleness  of  aim  grows  con- 
fused, the  purity  of  his  motive  is  clouded,  and 
the  divine  acceptableness  of  his  service  suffers. 
The  entrance  of  this  dual  reference  is  full  of 
peril.  The  man  has  need,  in  Jesus'  words,  to 
'  take  heed.'  Nothing  is  so  easy  as  to  let  a 
regard  to  the  notice  and  approbation  of  our 
fellows  edge  out  of  its  place  first  our  exclusive, 
and  by  and  by  our  supreme,  regard  to  the  judg- 


Before  God,  not  Men.  143 

ment  of  the  Fatlier,      Our  fellow-men  are  beside      part  n. 
us ;  we  see  that  they  observe  us ;  the  signs  of        ^ 
their  admiration  or  censure  are  present,  and  not    p^^^^'^^^^- 
to  be  mistaken.    Whereas  He  Who  sees  in  secret 
dwells  also  in  a  secret  place  ;  that  He  sees  us  at 
all,  or  cares  to  note  what  we  do,  is  a  thing  to  be 
taken  on  trust ;  if  He  is  passing  on  us  any  pre- 
sent judgment,  at  least  it  may  be  long  before  we 
know  it,  or  reap  either  reward  from  His  approval 
or  pain  from  His  displeasure.     Here,  as  always,  Cf-  2  Cor.  iv. 
it  is  the  present  which  thrusts  aside  the  future ; 
the  seen,  the  unseen  ;  and  sense,  faith. 

It  does  not  at  all  follow  that  a  man's  outward 
behaviour  will  change  when  this  change  of 
motive  occurs.  Man  may  have  displaced  God  as 
witness,  umpire,  and  rewarder  of  righteousness ; 
and  yet  the  same  righteous  acts  may  continue  to 
be  done,  and  done  as  diligently  or  punctiliously 
as  before.  The  man  is  fallen  from  a  son  of  God 
into  a  slave  of  human  criticism  ;  but  no  eye  which 
does  not  see  in  secret  can  at  first  detect  the  fall. 
His  righteousness  has  ceased  to  receive  reward 
from  God  ;  but  it  is  not  given  to  us  to  discern 
the  spiritual  worth  of  human  conduct,  and  the 
subtle  change  passes  unobserved.  ^Nevertheless, 
this  corruption  of  the  motive  works  disastrously 
on  practical  conduct.     For  when  a  man's  design 


144  TIu  Lavjs  of  the  Kingdom. 

in  behaving  well  is  to  be  looked  at,  then  the 
presence  of  human  witnesses  becomes  essential. 
To  be  in  society  means  then  to  be  on  one's  good 
behaviour.  To  be  alone,  where  only  God  sees, — 
the  one  Witness  Whose  inspection  I  have  ceased 
to  fear,  the  one  Judge  Whose  approbation  I  do 
not  crave, — this  is  to  be  without  the  motive 
which  moved  me  to  be  righteous.  Whatever 
restraint  the  presence  of  human  spectators  may 
impose  on  passion,  is  lifted  when  the  man  escapes 
from  observation ;  and  just  because  his  virtue 
was  a  thing  of  restraint  and  not  of  choice,  does 
he  make  up  by  the  licence  he  privately  allows 
himself  for  the  violence  he  has  done  himself  in 
public.  Thus  the  life  splits  itself  more  and  more 
into  two  halves  :  the  righteous  life  played  before 
men,  and  the  self-indulgent  life  lived  in  secret. 
An  appearance  of  devotion,  or  propriety,  or  bene- 
volence, is  sustained  where  the  conduct  is  seen  ; 
because  it  is  only  where  it  is  seen  that  any  suf- 
ficient motive  exists  for  being  generous,  or  de- 
corous, or  devout.  But  it  is  to  external  conduct 
only  that  this  consideration  applies.  The  inner 
life,  lived  even  in  their  presence,  is  not  visible  to 
those  who  have  been  installed  the  censors  or  re- 
warders  of  righteousness  ;  and  therefore  it  is  but 
the  appearance  of  goodness,  and  nothing  more, 


PKINCIPLE. 


Before  God,  not  Mm,  145 

which  it  is  either  needful  or  even  possible  to  parti 
sustain.  What  passes  now  for  such  a  man's  the 
righteousness  is  but  a  stage  performance,  at  which 
his  neighbours  assist  as  at  a  spectacle.  He  has 
fabricated  for  himself  a  double  life,  of  which  the 
visible  half  is  fair  but  false,  and  the  secret  half 
real  but  foul.  The  man  is  literally  what  his 
name  of  *  h}^ocrite '  signifies,  a  play-actor.  He 
only  personates  righteousness  for  applause;  he 
walks  the  earth  an  incarnate  falsehood. 

'  Take  heed '  is  the  warning  addressed  to  His 
first  Twelve,  in  their  first  days  of  fresh  sincerity ; 
a  warning  sharpened  by  the  sight  of  full-blown 
hypocrites  filling  at  that  moment  the  high  places 
of  their  fatherland,  and  the  '  seats '  where  pro- 
phets once  and  just  men  had  sat.  Of  this 
spiritual  plague  the  beginnings  are  as  slight  as 
the  issues  are  fatal.  Besides,  the  temptation  to 
act  from  a  regard  to  public  opinion  rather  than 
from  the  fear  of  God  is  one  which,  singularly 
enough,  lies  specially  near  to  men  with  a  reputa- 
tion for  religion.  The  fact  is  certain,  whether 
the  reasons  be  apparent  or  not.  One  reason  may 
be,  that  as  a  reputation  for  piety  is  hard  to 
win,  so  it  is  easy  to  lose.  The  world  expects  a 
great  deal  from  persons  who  imply  a  rebuke  on 
itself  by  professing  exceptional  godliness  ;  and  it 
K 


146 


The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 


THE 
PRINCIPLE. 


visits  any  decline  from  that  standard  with  corre- 
sponding severity.  It  judges  more  severely  the 
inconsistencies  of  religious  men  than  the  flat 
immoralities  of  others.  Hence  there  is  the 
strongest  reason  why  he  who  has  once  enjoyed 
a  character  for  religion  should  strive  to  keep, 
and  dread  to  lose,  it.  No  doubt  he  will  keep  it 
best  by  thinking  least  about  it.  A  single  eye  to 
his  true  Master  will  be  the  surest  way  of  walking 
straight ;  and  to  care  little  about  men's  censure 
is  in  the  majority  of  cases  to  ensure  at  least  their 
respect,  if  not  their  praise.  Still,  these  are  hard 
things  to  practise ;  and  when  a  good  man  finds 
that  his  character  for  goodness  is  both  very  fra- 
grant and  very  easily  blown  upon,  he  is  apt  to 
watch  over  it  with  an  unhealthy  jealousy,  to  ask 
what  men  will  say  when  he  ought  to  be  asking 
what  God  wills,  and  to  eke  out  the  goodness 
he  really  possesses  by  just  the  least  bit  of  occa- 
sional assumption,  in  talk  or  manner,  of  more 
goodness  still.  Add  to  this,  that  those  parts  of 
righteousness  which  belong  most  to  its  religious 
side  are  those  which  lend  themselves  most 
readily  to  imitation,  and  it  will  be  seen  why 
hypocrisy  should  be  characteristically  the  re- 
ligionist's vice.  To  persuade  society  that  you 
are  honest  while  you  are  cheating  it,  or  chaste 


PRINCIPLE. 


Before  God,  not  Men.  147 

when  you  are  licentious,  is  rather  hard.  Plain  part  i 
round  duties  of  every-day  morality  are  easily  the 
tested ;  and  comparatively  few  will  try  to  wear 
a  mask  which  is  so  sure  to  be  torn  off.  But  the 
higher  and  more  inward  side  of  virtue,  its  God- 
ward  aspect,  is  absolutely  screened  from  the 
direct  inspection  of  society  ;  and  if  it  betray  it- 
self at  all,  must  betray  itself  by  certain  outward 
signs  or  acts  which  are  very  imitable.  The  three 
stock  exercises  of  good  Pharisees,  for  example,  of 
which  Jesus  goes  on  to  speak,  are  pretty  much 
the  characteristic  outcome  of  piety  in  every  age 
of  the  world.  With  regard  to  every  one  of  these, 
it  is  exceedingly  easy  to  perform  the  visible  act, 
and  exceedingly  difficult  to  tell  what  feeling  is 
hidden  under  it.  Anybody  who  has  money  to  spare 
can  give  alms,  and  pass  for  charitable  ;  prayers 
are  as  easily  said  by  a  knave  as  by  a  saint ;  while 
he  who  cares  to  fast,  may  fast,  whatever  his 
reason  for  it  be.  The  actions  of  piety,  like  its 
tones  or  its  gaits,  are  so  imitable,  and  the  imita- 
tion is  so  hard  of  detection,  that  they  become 
the  invariable  livery  of  the  hypocrite.  For  the 
very  same  reason,  they  seduce  those  who  are  not 
as  yet  hypocrites  into  becoming  so.  When  a 
man  would  increase  or  preserve  a  reputation 
for  piety  which  he  has  once  honestly  enough  ob- 


148  Tlie  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.  tained,  it  is  fatally  easy  to  perform  pious  acts, 
THE  with  this  end  in  view,  a  little  oftener  or  a  little 
more  ostentatiously  than  he  would  do  were  he 
careful  only  about  serving  God.  Thus  one  gets, 
commonly  before  one  quite  knows  it,  on  that 
inclined  plane  of  men-pleasing  and  false  appear- 
ances, the  end  of  which  is  death.  '  Take  heed,' 
said  Jesus. 

ISTo  one  who  has  so  much  as  read  the  Gospels 

needs  to  be  told,  that  against  no  evil  in  religious 

life  did  Jesus  so  often  or  so  urgently  warn  His 

Lukexii.  1;  foUowers  as  acjaiust  hypocrisy.       'The  leaven  of 

cf.  Matt.  .         °  J  r  J 

xvi.  6  ff. ;     the   Pharisees,'  He  called   it ;  meaning  by  that 

Markviii.  15.  -i       i  • 

emblem,  as  I  suppose,  to  lay  stress  both  on  its 
slight  and  unobserved  beginnings,  and  on  its  rapid 
and  certain  increase  wherever  tolerated.  There 
is  no  guarantee  for  the  purity  of  spiritual  service, 
but  resolutely  to  repel  every  particle  of  insin- 
cerity or  unreality.  Only  admit  ever  so  little 
regard  to  what  men  will  say  of  you — only  pre- 
tend to  be  in  the  very  least  holier  or  better  than 
you  are ;  and  not  only  is  your  inner  life  no  longer 
a  whole,  true,  transparent  thing,  but  you  have 
admitted  a  working  principle  of  falsehood,  the 
nature  of  which  is  to  spread,  and  to  spread  fast. 
The  eye  once  diverted  from  the  Father  in  heaven, 
gets  incapable  of  looking  straight  at  our  unseen 


THE 
PRINCIPLE. 


Before  God,  not  Men.  149 

Witness ;  the  ear  once  open  to  the  mnrmnr  of 
human  applause  at  one's  side,  forgets  to  listen  for 
that  voice  of  heavenly  approval  which  only  faith 
can  hear ;  the  piety  which,  however  genuine,  is 
flaunted  as  a  robe  to  be  admired,  soon  ceases  to 
be  more  than  a  cloak  of  deceit ;  in  short,  the 
entrance  of  insincerity  is  like  the  letting  in  of 
waters, — it  widens  its  own  passage,  and  drowns  Cf.  l  Tim. 
the  soul  in  perdition  at  last.  '  Take  heed,'  there- 
fore. Whatever  we  do,  let  us  do  it  as  in  God's 
sight.  Who  sees  in  secret  as  well  as  in  public  ; 
whatever  we  are  before  God  alone,  that  we  are  to 
be  in  the  presence  of  men — that,  and  no  more. 
Affect  not  any  feelings  or  desires  ;  no,  nor  tricks  of 
voice,  nor  devoutnesses  of  manner,  which  are  not 
downright  and  true,  else  you  have  no  reward  of 
your  heavenly  Father.  '  No  reward,'  says  Jesus 
here,  putting  God's  judgment  on  hypocrisy  at  its 
lowest;  because  here  He  would  only  warn  against 
the  first  false  step,  and  spoke  to  hearts  which  were 
as  yet  tender  and  loyal.  Hear  how  He  spoke,  a 
little  later,  to  men  who  had  travelled  far  on  the 
road,  of  the  hypocrite,  and  had  come  to  hide 
behind  their  stage  dress  and  painted  mask  of  piety 
nothing  but  greed  and  cruelty  and  lust :  '  Woe  See  Matt. 

xxiii.  lo-o3. 

unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites  !  fools 
and  blind !  whited  sepulchres  !  children  of  hell ! 


150 


The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 


PART  II. 


THE 
PRINCIPLE. 


generation  of  vipers  !'  Such  startling  words  of 
indignation — words  that  shiver  and  scorch  like 
lightning — He  never  uttered,  except  against  the 
men  who  affected  religion  for  the  sake  of  appear- 
ances. Let  each  Christian,  therefore,  guard  as 
his  best  treasure  that  life  in  secret,  that  holy 
tremulous  fear  of  God,  that  openness  to  His  eye, 
that  simplicity  of  regard  for  His  will,  that  un- 
affected indifference  to  all  spectators  save  Him, 
which  is  the  very  soul  and  breath  of  all  true 
righteousness ;  for  without  that  we  may  have 
what  credit  we  will  among  men,  or  wear  what 
garb  of  goodness  we  please,  but  we  have  neither 
honour  nor  reward  at  the  hands  of  the  secret- 
judging  Father,  Who  trieth  heart  and  reins. 


FIRST    APPLI  CATIO  N: 
TO    ALMSGIVING. 


151 


Therefore,  icTien  thou  doest  [thinel  alms,  do  not  sound  a 
trumpet  before  thee,  as  the  hypocrites  do  in  the  synagogues  and 
in  the  streets,  that  they  may  have  glory  of  men.  Verily  I 
say  unto  you.  They  have  their  reward.  But  when  thou  doest 
alms,  let  not  thy  left  hand  know  ivhat  thy  right  hand  doeth : 
that  thine  alms  may  he  in  secret ;  and  thy  Father,  Which  seeth 
in  secret,  [Himself '\  shall  reward  thee  [openly']. — Matt.  vi. 
2-4. 


152 


0 


ALMSGIVING. 


F    the    three    religious    exercises    to    which      paet  n. 
Jesus  applied  His  general  warning  against       first 


a  hypocritical  courting  of  publicity,  almsgiving  is 
undoubtedly  the  one  with  reference  to  which  we 
moderns  have  most  need  to  be  warned.  At  the 
same  time,  it  is  the  one  which  has  now-a-days 
the  least  connection  with  the  religious  service  of 
God.  Since  Christianity  has  succeeded  in  breath- 
ing a  general  spirit  of  compassion  for  the  desti- 
tute and  suffering  into  modern  European  life,  and 
since  society  has  been  taught  to  respect  the  duty 
of  beneficence  on  that  broad  ground  of  humanity 
which  Christianity  was  the  first  to  enforce,  alms- 
giving, or  rather  all  active  charity  from  man  to 
man,  has  ceased  to  be,  to  the  same  extent  as 
formerly,  an  act  of  religion.  It  is  no  longer  con- 
fined to  religious  persons.  It  is  not  so  exclu- 
sively urged  on  religious  grounds.  Many  who 
do  not  profess  to  be  serving  God  in  it,  are  ready 
enough  to  put  their  hand  to  enterprises  of  prac- 
tical beneficence.     It  is,  in  fact,  a  virtue  much 

153 


APPLICATION. 


154  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.  petted  by  that  section  of  society  wliicli  does 
FIRST  not  call  itself  religious,  by  whom  it  is  usually 
opposed,  either  to  the  zeal  of  orthodoxy,  which 
attaches  weisjht  to  men's  theolocrical  beliefs,  or 
to  that  '  unpractical '  piety  which  seeks  to  save 
people's  souls  while  their  bodies  remain  unre- 
lieved. However  idle  or  unjust  this  pitting 
of  one  virtue  against  another  may  be,  religious 
persons  have  no  reason  to  regret  that  the  area 
of  effective  kindness  among  men  has  been  much 
widened,  or  that  one  of  the  secondary  fruits 
of  Christ's  faith  has  been  to  lead  those  who 
never  would  have  shown  any  charity  for  God's 
sake,  to  show  it  for  man's.  Inadequate  we 
must  hold  the  merely  humanitarian  motive  to 
be — inadequate  at  its  best,  and  in  the  long-run 
unreliable,  when  not  sustained  by  a  deeper 
regard  for  His  will  Who  is  the  Father  of  us 
all.  Still  we  ought  to  rejoice  when,  from  any 
motive  whatever,  the  lot  of  our  poor  or  ailing 
brothers  is  made  lighter  by  generous  hands.  For 
the  sake  of  our  religion  itself,  however,  it  is  of 
consequence  that  the  intimate  connection  which 
it  has  so  long  had  with  benevolence  should  neither 
be  forgotten  nor  relaxed.  Charity  has  always 
been  an  integral  part  of  practical  Christianity ;  at 
the  best  of  times  it  was  even  an  offering  of  chris- 


Almsgiving.  155 

tian  worship  :  and  this  sacred  link  between  the      part  it. 
service  we  pay  to  men  and  that  which  we  owe  to        first 

,  1    •    1      r>n      •         APPLICATION, 

God  is  part  of  the  good  inheritance  which  Chris- 
tianity drew  from  Judaism.  The  religious  cha- 
racter attached  to  the  duty  of  almsgiving,  under 
both  the  earlier  and  the  new  economy,  it  will 
therefore  be  worth  our  while  to  trace. 

The  Jewish  commonwealth  had  no  poor-law 
in  the  modern  sense ;  but  its  legislation  was  skil- 
fully directed,  first  to  prevent  poverty,  and  then 
to  relieve  in  the  kindest  way  such  poverty  as 
could  not  be  prevented.  The  strange  land-law 
which  restored  to  its  original  owner,  at  the 
close  of  every  half-century,  all  property^  which, 
through  pressure  of  misfortune,  had  become 
alienated,  was  a  powerful  instrument  for  prevent- 
incr  the  accumulation  of  land  in  a  few  hands  and 

o 

the  consequent  growth  of  a  hopelessly  impover- 
ished class.  The  general  remission  of  outstand- 
ing debts  at  the  same  'year  of  jubilee'^  told  in  a 
similar  direction.  Still  it  was  certain  that  the 
poor  could  '  never  cease  out  of  the  land  ;'  and  the  Deut.  xv.  ii. 
law  enjoined  on  every  Israelite  the  most  generous 

^  Except  town  property,  or  land  devoted  by  its  proper  owner 
to  sacred  purposes.     See  Lev.  xxv.  29-31,  and  xxvii.  18-24. 
2  See  Josephus,  Antt.  iii.  12.  3. 


156  Tlie  Lavjs  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.      consideration  for  his  unfortunate  brethren.     He 

FIRST       was  urged  to  lend  to  the  poor  without  interest, 

APPLICATION.  ^itjjQ^  1^  (jg]3^g  Qf  ^l^ig  character  could  not   be 

Deut.  XV.  ° 

1-4.  recovered  after  the  seventh  year.     Each   seventh 

Lev.  XXV.  5.  year,  also,  the  spontaneous  products  of  the  un- 
tilled  earth  were  open  to  any  hand  to  pluck 
them ;  each  third  year  one-tenth  part  of  the 
crops  was  set  aside,  not,  like  the  annual  tithe,  for 
the  ordinary  maintenance  of  the  sacred  tribe,  but 
Deut.  xiv.     for  special  distribution  anions^  the  destitute  classes 

28  29 

xx'vi.  12-14.  as  well  as  among  God's  ministers  ',^  each  harvest 
Lev.  xLx.  9,  the    field    corners    were    to    be    left    desio^nedly 

10,  xxiii.  22.  ,  ,      ,  „  , 

unreaped,  and  the    smaller    grape -clusters    un- 
Cf.  Deut.      gathered,  that  there  might  be  something  for  the 
Euth  ii.  2.  '  poor  to  glean  ;  the  standing  crops  were  free  to 
every  hungry  passer-by  to  eat ;  while,  in  order 
to  connect  the  duty  of  charity  closely  with  re- 
liction, the  e^reat  relisrious  festivals  of  the  sacred 
year    were    celebrated    with    open    banquets,  at 
which,  while  the  prosperous  husbandman  himself 
Deut.  xvi.     rejoiced   over   God's  bounty,  '  the   stranger   and 
the  fatherless  and  the  widow'  were  also  to  be 
welcome  guests. 

^  There  is  some  difficulty  about  the  relation  of  these  new  pre- 
scriptions in  Deuteronomy  to  the  original  tithe-law  in  Leviticus 
(xxvii.  30-33)  ;  but  they  are  more  likely  to  have  been  an  addi- 
tion to  the  annual  tax  than  a  limitation  of  it. 


Almsgiving.  157 

Throughout  the  whole  of  these  most  careful      part  ii. 
and  liberal  statutes,  obedience  was  enforced  by       fiest 
the  highest  of  all  considerations.      It  was  because 
their  fathers  had  been  '  bondmen '  and  poor  in  Deut.  xv.  15, 

xvi   12 

Egypt,  but    had    been    redeemed    by   Jehovah's  xxiv.  22. 

kindness ;  because  the  generous  land  they  dwelt 

in  was  His  land,  and  brought  forth  plenty  at  His 

bidding  ;  because  He  loved  to  reward  the  merciful 

with  increase,  but  was  ready  to  avenge  the  cry  Deut.  xxiv. 

14  15  19 

of   the  needy ;    in   short,   it   was   because  they     '     ' 

'  feared  God '  that  their  eye  was  not  to  be  '  evil,' 

nor  their  heart  hard,  nor  their  hand  shut  ac^ainst  Cf.  Deut. 

.  XV.  7-11. 

their  poor  brother.  This  elevation  of  liberality  to 
the  poor  into  a  sacred  duty  to  God  has  naturally 
left  its  mark  upon  the  whole  later  literature  of 
the  Hebrew  people.  Especially  in  the  wealthy  and 
relaxed  age  of  Solomon  do  we  find  stress  laid  on 
alms  as  winning  prosperity^  and  spiritual  favour^ 
from  the  Almighty ;  while  the  man  who  oppressed 
the  poor  by  usury,  or  put  them  off  with  empty 
promises,  was  regarded  as  reproaching  Him  Who 
had  made  rich  and  poor  alike,  and  in  danger  of 
forfeiting  his  unhallowed  gains.^  In  spite,  how- 
ever, of  both  written  laws  and  current  maxims, 

1  Cf.  Prov.  xiv.  21,  xxii.  9,  xxviii.  27. 

2  Prov.  X.  2,  xi.  4. 

3  See  Prov.  iii.  27,  28,  xiv.  31,  xvii.  5,  xxii.  16,  xxviii.  8. 


158  The  Laius  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.      the  bad  times  which  followed  in  the  disrupted 
FIRST       kingdom  were  times  of  social  wrong,  and  greed, 

APPLICATION.  J  -o  ^^  •  rni 

and  manifold  oppression.  Ine  successive  voices 
of  the  prophets  are  loud  in  their  condemnation  of 
the  rich  and  powerful  for  '  grinding  the  faces '  of 
their  poorer  countrymen,  and  '  selling  the  needy ' 
for  trifling  gain.^  When  they  summoned  the 
land  to  repentance,  this  was  the  fast  which  the 
isa.iviii.6,7.  Lord  cliose :  '  To  deal  thy  bread  to  the  hungry,  and 
that  thou  bring  the  outcast  poor  to  thy  house ; 
when  thou  seest  the  naked,  that  thou  cover 
him ;  and  that  thou  hide  not  thyself  from  thine 
own  flesh.'  Throughout  the  prophetic  period, 
indeed,  kindness  to  the  poor  is  preached  as  one 
of  the  first  duties  of  piety  and  a  main  proof  of 
loyalty  to  their  theocratic  King  Jehovah.  It  was 
evidently  needed.  Although  we  do  not  read  of 
actual  mendicancy  till  after  the  long  captivity  had 
shaken  to  pieces  the  old  Mosaic  institutions  and 
utterly  impoverished  the  land,  there  is  no  doubt 
that,  under  the  later  monarchy,  luxury  and  in- 
justice must  have  done  their  work,  by  reducing  a 
large  class  to  hopeless  dependence  upon  charity; 
so  that,  more  than  ever,  patriotism  and  religion 

1  Cf.  amongst  others,  passages  like  Isa.  iii.  14,  15  ;  Jer.  v. 
28,  xxii.  16,  17  ;  Amos  ii.  6,  v.  11,  12,  viii.  4-8  ;  Ezek.  xviii. 
7-13  :  Zech.  vii.  8-14. 


Almsgiving.  159 

combined  to  recommend  to  the  pious  an  open-      part  n. 
handed  almsgiving.^  first 

Thus  the  Jewish  mind  was  prepared  for  that 
exafy(:reration  of  this  virtue  which  had  come  to 
prevail  in  the  time  of  Christ,  and  which  is  one 
of  the  features  of  later  Judaism.  Already  in  the 
apocryphal  books  we  find,  along  with  excellent 
exhortations  to  liberality,  an  extravagant  value 
ascribed  to  the  exercise  of  it.  '  Turn  not  thy  Tob.  iv.  7- 
face  from  any  poor,  and  the  face  of  God  shall  not 
be  turned  away  from  thee.  If  thou  hast  abun- 
dance, give  alms  accordingly ;  if  thou  have  but 
a  little,  be  not  afraid  to  give  according  to  that 
little :  for  thou  layest  up  a  good  treasure  for 
thyself  against  the  day  of  necessity : '  these  are 
words  which  strongly  recall  what  our  Lord  said  Luke  xvi.  9 ; 

.  p     ,  cf .  xii.  33  ; 

about  making  heavenly  friends  out  of  the  earthly  Matt.xix.2i. 
mammon  :  but  when  it  is  added  that  '  alms  do  Tob.  xii.  9 ; 

J  Ecclus.  iii. 

deliver  from  death'  and  '  shall  purge  away  all  sm,  30. 
or  that  '  alms  maketh  an  atonement  for  sins '  as 
water  quencheth  flame,^  we  feel  that  we  are  on 

1  Generosity  to  the  poor  is  conspicuous  in  the  Purim  festivi- 
ties (Esth.  ix.  22),  and  in  the  rejoicings  which  celebrated  the 
resumption  of  national  worship  in  the  rebuilt  capital.  Cf.  Neh. 
Tiii.  10-12. 

2  This  exaggeration  of  alms  has  been  curiously  revived  in  the 
Christian  Church  through  the  misinterpretation  of  the  text, 
'  Charity  shall  cover  the  multitude  of  sins  '  (1  Pet.  iv.  8).     In 


160  The  Laios  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.      a  soil  out  of  which  the  fictitious  righteousness 
FIRST       of   the  Pharisees  could  grow.      When   such    an 

.ppLicATiox.  exaggerated  spiritual  worth  before  God  can  be 
attached  to  any  external  act,  were  it  the  best  a 
man  can  do,  the  spiritual  sense  must  already  have 
become  distorted,  and  the  way  is  prepared  for  the 
substitution  of  merely  external  acts  for  the  inward 
spirit  of  righteousness. 

This  process  of  perversion  had  gone  its  full 
length  when  Jesus  spoke.  It  is  true  that  the 
arrangements  for  the  collection  of  charity  among 
the  later  Jews  were  admirable  enough.     A  row 

Cf.  Mark  xii.  of  alms-boxes  stood  always  in  the  temple  court 
to  receive  the  offerings  of  worshippers ;  at  every 
Sabbath  morning  service  in  the  synagogues,  ap- 
pointed officers  collected  money  for  the  poor  of 
the  town,  to  be  given  away  the  same  afternoon, 
besides  a  special  offertory  on  fast-days ;  from 
house  to  house,  also,  agents  solicited  broken 
meats  and  other  gifts  for  gratuitous  distribution.^ 
Through  its  times  of  deepest  depression,  the 
Jewish  race  has  never  since  forgotten  its  old 
habit  of  remembering  the  poor.     To  this  hour  it 


this,  as  in  many  other  matters,  debased  Catholicism  has  run  a 
similar  course  to  debased  Judaism. 

^  The  authorities  will  be  found  cited  by  Winer  in  his  Real- 
worterbuch,  under  art.  *  Almosen. ' 


Almsgiving,  161 

sets  to  Gentiles  and  Christians  a  good  example,  part  n. 
and  to  this  hour  the  ancient  alliance  between  the  first 
worship  of  God  and  charity  to  the  needy  brother-  ^^^'^^ication. 
hood  has  kept  its  ground.  But  the  over-estima- 
tion of  almsgiving,  as  a  part  of  righteousness, 
corrupted  the  motives  of  it.  Men  who  attach 
merit  to  the  mere  act,  or  fancy  that  parting  with 
theu'  money  can  of  itself  purchase  forgiveness 
or  reward  from  the  Almighty,  have  already  lost 
that  spirit  of  humble  gratitude  to  Him  which 
chiefly  makes  the  gift  precious.  That  spirit  gone, 
another  inspiration  wiU  take  its  place.  The 
good  deed  is  performed,  and  the  gift  given,  what- 
ever motive  lie  behind  it.  Why  should  not 
reputation  on  earth,  as  well  as  favour  from  heaven, 
be  the  rew^ard  of  so  virtuous  an  action  ?  To 
please  God  by  doing  alms,  and  please  men  by 
letting  them  see  the  alms  we  do,  is  a  successful 
stroke  wdiich  pays  a  man  doubly  for  his  outlay. 
Only  there  is  an  unhappy  tendency  in  all  cases 
where  a  lower  motive  mingles  with  a  better  one, 
that  the  base  should  by  degrees  eat  away  the 
noble.  Neither  a  simple  regard  to  God,  nor  even 
a  pure  generosity  to  men,  w^ill  long  dwell  in  the 
heart  along  with  an  interested  eye  to  profit  or 
applause ;  so  that  the  rich  Pharisee,  who  begins 
by  trumpeting  his  good  deeds,   ends   by  hardly 

L 


APPLICATION. 


162  The  Laws  of  the  Kirigdom. 

seeking  any  higher  reward  than  a  reputation  for 
FIRST  generosity.  The  hypocrites  whom  our  Lord  cen- 
sured took  care  to  bestow  their  charity  at  the 
synagogues,  where  the  beggars  congregated  about 
the  door  and  the  people  passing  by  could  see  ; 
or  they  paraded  their  bounty,  by  dispensing  it 
along  the  narrow  and  crowded  Oriental  thorough- 
fares. They  might  about  as  well  have  literally 
'  blown  a  trumpet,'  as  their  namesakes  the  stage- 
players  did,  to  call  idle  bystanders  to  the  spec- 
tacle. Not  without  a  touch  of  caustic  satire  does 
Jesus  add,  *  Verily  they  have  their  reward.' 
Men  do  look  on  and  praise  ;  even  if  the  shrewder 
should  nod  to  one  another  or  whisper  a  jest  about 
trumpet-blowing,  at  least  the  indigent  who  take 
his  coin  dare  not  show  that  they  see  through  the 
donor's  motive,  and  there  arc  sure  to  be  persons 
thoughtless  enough  to  credit  him  with  excep- 
tional piety  and  benevolence.  The  man  who 
plays  at  almsgiving,  therefore,  has  what  he  covets 
and  courts.  But  see !  Above  there  is  another 
Witness,  in  Whose  pure  name  the  farce  is  played, 
and  before  Whose  face  the  player  must  one  day 
stand.  Surely  what  He  has  seen  in  secret.  He 
too  shall  then  reward  very  openly  ^  indeed ;  but 

^  Tlironghout  this  section  of  St.  Matthew  the  reading  of  the 
received  text,  iv  tZ  (panfu,  is  discredited  by  seine  recent  critics, 


AlTnsgiviTig.  163 

it  shall  be  with  that  unlooked-for  reward  in  which      part  ii. 
'  all  liars  '  have  a  part.  first 

We  are  now,  I  think,  in  a  position  to  see  what  ^^^^^^^tion. 

^  Eev.  xxi.  8. 

was  our  Lord's  attitude  towards  this  duty  of 
almsgiving,  and  how  it  passed  from  the  Old  to 
the  JSTew  Testament.  Here  also  He  did  not  de-  Matt.  v.  17. 
stroy,  but  fulfil.  For,  in  the  first  place,  He  had 
not  a  word  to  say  against  that  ancient  association 
of  active  beneficence  with  religious  worship  and 
the  fear  of  God  which  had  honourably  distin- 
guished the  historical  institutions  of  His  country- 
men. Eather,  by  re-asserting  that  alms  must  be 
given  as  in  God's  secret  sight.  He  replanted  charity 
in  its  true  soil  of  godliness.  He  has  left  it  where 
the  whole  development  of  Hebrew  thought  had 
placed  it,  in  one  class  with  prayers  and  fasting, 
as  an  integral  part  of  a  devout  man's  righteous- 
ness. It  is  true  that  both  His  own  example  (Who  Luke  viii.  3 ; 
had  everything  except  silver  and  gold  to  give) 
and  the  spirit  of  His  own  teaching  have  widened 
for  us  the  sphere  of  our  active  beneficence.  Bare 
almsgiving  is  not  now  the  only,  nor  even  the 
chief,  way  in  which  it  is  open  to  us  to  relieve 
men's  material  wants,  or  cure  the  social  disorder 

but,  as  regards  verses  4  and  6,  on  doubtful  autbority.  At  all 
events,  the  idea  o^  a, public  retribution  is  amply  sustained  by  such 
passages  as  Matt.  x.  32,  xxv.  31-46  ;  Luke  ix.  26,  xii.  1,  2. 


164  TJie  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.  out  of  which  want  springs.  Christian  charity 
FIRST       early  gave  itself,  with  a  blessed  inventiveness  in 

.ppLicATioN.  ^en_(joijia  to  the  healiog  of  the  sick,  the  ransom 
of  the  slave,  the  burial  of  the  dead,  the  teaching 
of  the  young,  and  the  like  gratuitous  services  to 
society.  In  our  more  complex  life,  the  solution 
of  economical  and  social  difficulties  is  perhaps  its 
noblest  and  most  arduous  field.  But  when  Jesus 
commended  the  generous  widow,  who  cast  all  her 

Mark  xii.      livin^f  into  the  poor's  box,  and  set  her  forth  as  a 

42-44.  o  r  J 

pattern  of  benevolence.  He  both  recognised  alms 
as  a  fit  channel  for  charity  where  no  other  or 
better  can  be  found,  and  at  the  same  time  praised 
by  implication  all  less  simple  efforts  to  relieve 
distress  or  lessen  the  sum  of  human  need. 
Whether  it  be  only  a  '  mite '  of  money  spared  by 
thrift  out  of  a  slender  income,  or  the  foundations 
endowed  by  men  of  fortune,  or  personal  attend- 
ance on  the  helpless  and  aged,  or  surgical  inge- 
nuity abridging  pain,  or  statesmanlike  labour  to 
make  every  worker  a  fair  sharer  in  the  profits  of 
labour  ;  all  forms  of  what,  for  shortness,  we  may 
call  '  almsgiving '  are  equally  elevated  under  the 
christian  system  into  a  pious  service,  and  linked 
to  the  fear  and  love  of  our  heavenly  Father. 
John  xii.  8;  Jesus  tauojht  His  first  disciples  to  see  in  the  poor, 

Matt.  XXV.  °  .  'I 

40.  whom  we  have  always  with  us,  representatives  of 


Almsgiving.  165 

Himself,  in  relieving  whom  we  pay  Him  service,      part  h. 

and   thus  gave  a  new  christian  reading  to   the        first 

good    old   Hebrew   saying,    that    '  he   that   hath  ^^^^^^^'^^^n- 

pity  upon  the  poor  lendeth  unto  the  Lord.'      The  Prov.  xix. 

17 
first  act  of  the  new-born  Church  was  to  abolish 

poverty  among  her  own  members  by  a  systematic  Acts  iv. 

distribution  of  alms  on  an  unprecedented  scale. 

So  lonor  as  christian  communities  were  small  and 

o 

oppressed,  and  mainly  recruited  from  the  labouring 
and  servile  classes,  it  was  only  within  the  circle 
of  christian  disciples  that  charity  could  be  shown ; 
but  such  charity  was  always  enforced  by  the 
most  sacred  and  spiritual  motives.  The  self- 2Cor.viii.  9; 
impoverishing  grace  of  the  Son  of  God,  His  love  i v.  20-v.  2;' 
of  His  brethren  unto  death,  the  common  sonship 
to  God  which  made  christian  men  brothers  in 
a  sense  which  was  then  new,  the  unity  of  the 
christian  body,  and  the  supreme  example  which 
God  had  given  of  the  blessedness  of  giving ; 
these  were  the  fresh  thoughts  which  in  the  early 
Church  gave  to  the  old  duty  of  almsgiving  a 
mighty  impulse, — thoughts  fetched  all  of  them 
out  of  the  very  holiest  mysteries  of  the  christian 
faith.  The  new  revelation  of  God  supplemented 
those  pious  considerations  which  from  the  time 
of  Moses  had  given  strength  to  Hebrew  kindli- 
ness ;    yet   apostles   were   not  above  borrowing, 


166  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  ir.      that  they   might  use  anew,  the   old  arguments. 

FIRST        Paul  pleads  with  Corinth,  in  words  of  Solomon's, 

that  to  scatter  with  a  Qenerous  hand  is  the  secret 

2  Cor.  ix.  6-  ^ 

11 ;  cf,  Prov.  of  the   bcst    increase ;    and    the   writer   to    the 

xi.  24,  25.  ' 

Heb.  xiii.  16;  Hebrews  speaks  of  beneficence,  as  Isaiah  might 
11-17.'  '  h.dNQ  done,  as  a  sacrifice  with  which  '  God  is  well 
pleased.'  The  truth  is,  that  the  infixed  as  well 
as  inbred  selfishness  of  men  has  need  to  be 
plied  with  every  variety  of  noble  motive  for 
being  generous ;  only  the  motives  with  which 
Scripture  plies  us  are  never  drawn  from  a  sen- 
timental humanity,  but  always  from  a  divine 
faith.  The  Church  had  ample  justification,  if 
not  in  the  letter,  yet  in  the  spirit,  of  the 
Word,  for  that  very  old  and  beautiful  usage 
which,  by  soliciting  for  the  poor  the  alms  of 
the  faithful  as  often  as  they  come  together  to 
'  eat  bread,'  has  enshrined  this  whole  duty  of 
beneficence  at  the  very  centre  and  sanctuary  of 
christian  devotion. 

While  Jesus  thus  carried  over  into  His  new 
kingdom  the  traditional  association  of  all  humane 
and  liberal  deeds  with  the  service  of  God,  He 
strove,  by  applying  to  almsgiving  the  law  of 
secrecy,  to  reanimate  it  with  the  spirit  of  sincere 
and  unaffected  godliness.     All  the  more  because 


Almsgiving.  167 

this  holy  work  of  ministering  to  the  poor  was,  and  part  n. 
ought  to  be,  a  devout  tribute  paid  to  Him  Who  first 
makes  the  rich  man  His  steward  and  the  poor 
His  care,  ought  a  pure  regard  for  Him,  and  not 
for  human  opinion,  to  lie  at  the  bottom  of  it.  It  is 
a  wretched  tiling  to  turn  what  is  meant  to  be  a 
passage  of  love  betwixt  the  true  heart  and  its  God 
into  a  piece  of  petty  ostentation.  Secrecy  in 
giving  is  the  cure  which  Christ  prescribed.  It  is 
true,  indeed,  that  provided  the  heart  be  honest 
and  keep  God  alone  in  view  as  its  Spectator  and 
Eewarder,  it  will  matter  nothinsj  where  the  alms 
are  given,  or  with  what  publicity.  But  it  is 
equally  certain  that  the  presence  of  witnesses  sets 
a  trap  for  the  weakness  of  human  vanity,  suggests 
the  desire  to  be  observed,  and  easily,  almost  in- 
evitably, adulterates  the  motive.  Extremely  few 
people,  and  especially  few  wealthy  people,  are 
above  the  temptation  to  let  their  munificence  be 
known,  that  they  may  win  the  present  pleasure 
of  being  praised,  as  well  as  the  hope  of  some  less 
appreciable  reward  in  the  world  to  come.  How 
much  must  this  temptation  be  increased  when  the 
current  mode  of  collecting  alms  compels  men  to 
bestow  them  in  public ;  nay,  when  this  appeal  to 
vanity  is  deliberately  employed  by  the  agents  of 
charity  for  the  purpose  of  drawing  from  the  vain 


168  Tlie  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.  ricli  a  larger  subscription  !  It  is  not  too  much 
FIRST  to  say,  that  this  motive  of  ostentation  is  worked 
in  the  interest  of  some  of  our  public  charities 
on  a  system.  Secretaries,  collectors,  and  other 
organizers  of  benevolence,  are  apt  to  be  held  suc- 
cessful at  tlieir  work  in  proportion  as  they  can 
play  skilfully  on  this  infirmity  of  the  benevolent, 
and,  by  humouring  men's  love  of  reputation,  swell 
the  society's  list.  There  is  undoubtedly  a  certain 
space  left,  after  higher  motives  have  got  their  due, 
for  the  play  of  such  a  secondary,  but  still  harm- 
less, motive  as  emulation.  Between  different 
public  bodies  this  may  fairly  be  used  in  the  ser- 

2  Cor.  viii.  vicc  of  charity.  Paul  was  not  ashamed  to  press 
liberality  on  the  wealthy  church  at  Corinth  by 
the  example  of  poorer  Christians  in  Macedonia. 
Even  emulation,  however,  is  hardly  a  safe  motive 
to  work  when  individuals,  not  bodies  of  men,  are 
to  be  handled  ;  and  it  is  nobleness  itself,  compared 
with  the  petty  consideration  of  personal  vanity. 
Who  does  not  know  that  some  men  never  contri- 
bute unless  the  donation  is  to  be  advertised  in 
the  papers  ?  Are  people  never  found  to  follow 
the  lead  of  a  few  first  subscribers,  and  give  where 
aristocratic  patrons  have  shown  the  way  ?  Is  it 
desirable  that,  when  people  are  warm  with  wine, 
they  should  hear  their  offerings  shouted  forth  at 


IX.  passim. 


ArPLICATION. 


Almsgivitig.  169 

the  close  of  a  charity  dinner  ?  Or  what  shall  be  part  h. 
said  of  firms  the  names  of  which  figure  promi-  first 
nently  when  a  public  subscription  list  is  opened 
in  the  City,  but  for  whose  less  obtrusive  bounty 
no  beggared  family  of  orphans  or  broken-down 
clerk  in  their  own  office  was  ever  much  the 
better  ?  Nor  is  the  Church  quite  safe  from  a 
similar  reproach ;  still  less  what  is  termed  '  the 
religious  world.'  There  are  christian  congrega- 
tions where  a  bag  handed  round  the  pews  will 
produce  twice  as  much  as  an  unobtrusive  box  in 
the  porch.  Missionary  societies  live  to  some 
extent  by  the  same  arts  of  canvassing,  puffing, 
and  advertising  which  are  used  for  hospitals  and 
orphanages.  Our  larger  christian  enterprises  are 
usually  started  by  published,  and  by  no  means 
anonymous,  lists.  I  am  far  from  meaning,  of 
course,  that  it  is  always  possible  even  for  the  most 
modest  and  sincere  giver  to  escape  such  methods 
of  giving  ;  or  that  those  who  have  gTcat  schemes 
of  benevolence  in  hand  can  all  at  once  shake 
themselves  clear  of  the  offensive  features  in  our 
present  system.  But  while  there  unquestionably  is 
in  England  a  vast  amount  of  honest,  good-hearted 
kindness,  and  of  genuine  christian  liberality,  let 
any  man  who  knows  ask  himself  whether  there 
is  not  also  entwined  with  it  a  vast  deal  which  is 


170  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom, 

spurious,  and  which  people  know  to  be  spurious. 
Let  him  ask  whether,  without  these  offerincfs  of 
the  baser  sort,  either  our  benevolent  or  our  reli- 
gious undertakings  could  thrive,  or  perhaps  exist, 
as  they  do ;  and  whether  it  is  not  a  fact  that  our 
methods  of  collecting  are  sometimes  intentionally 
constructed  so  as  to  angle  for  the  offerings  of  vanity 
as  well  as  for  those  of  piety  ?  One  wonders  what 
words  of  sarcasm,  mounting  into  outspoken  wrath- 
ful denunciation.  He  would  address  to  our  modern 
Pharisees,  were  He  sent  acjain  to  London  Who  was 
once  sent  of  the  Father  to  old  Jerusalem.  Not 
that  even  these  were  to  be  His  most  fearful  words 
against  the  ostentation  of  charity.  So  long  as  He 
sat  on  the  lowly  sward  of  our  earth,  with  the 
wide-armed  bounty  of  His  Father's  sunshine  glad- 
dening the  soil  and  air  around  Him,  it  was  well 
that  He  should  speak  humanly — not  severely — 
of  our  human  foibles  :  '  Verily  I  say  unto  you, 
Ye  have  your  reward.'  Other  words  will  become 
those  regal  lips  when  the  King  shall  be  seated  on 
B«v.  XX.  11.  His  white  throne  of  celestial  judgment,  and  before 
isa.  xxxiii  His  awful  face  '  fearfulness  shall  surprise  the 
hypocrites.' 

There  is  no  cure  for  this  rottenness  at  the  heart 
of  charity  but  secrecy.  '  When  thou  doest  alms, 
let  not  thy  left  hand  know  what  thy  right  hand 


Almsgiving.  171 

doeth.'  If  it  woiJd  be  a  reason  for  giving  more  part  n. 
than  the  fear  of  God  or  the  love  of  man  prompts  first 
you  to  give,  do  not  even  say  to  yourselr,  with  a 
glow  of  seK-approval,  '  I  have  given  alms.'  Cer- 
tain acts  of  piety,  such  as  private  prayer,  do 
naturally  court  seclusion  from  every  eye.  Un- 
fortunately, in  charitable  deeds,  there  must  com- 
monly be  at  least  two  parties  privy  to  the  action : 
the  giver  and  the  receiver.  In  any  case,  let  no 
third  witness  be  by,  if  you  can  help  it ;  nay,  let 
not  even  the  receiver  know  who  is  the  donor,  if 
you  can  help  it.  Let  us  do  our  best  to  discourage 
and  abolish  the  vicious  system  of  trumpeted 
benefactions,  of  advertised  lists,  of  alms  wheedled 
by  flattery  out  of  close  fists,  of  weak  though  bene- 
volent souls  tempted  into  corrupt  motives  and 
the  ffivincj  which  bringjs  no  reward.  It  was  the 
Church  which  first  taught  society  throughout  Chris- 
tendom this  now  fashionable  virtue  of  charity.  It 
is  the  Church  which  can  alone  teach  that  better 
way  of  giving  in  the  simplicity  and  unconscious- 
ness of  a  childlike  regard  for  the  heavenly  Father, 
which  will  make  our  charity  fragrant,  and  not  an 
offence,  to  Heaven.  To  bring  our  benevolence 
under  the  breath  of  our  godliness ;  to  make  our 
alms  as  real  a  part  of  devotion  as  our  prayers ;  to 
do  good  secretly  and  for  God's  sake ;  to  devote 


172  The  Laivs  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.      first  to  God   and  to   our  Lord  Christ  what  we 
FIRST       propose  to  bestow  on  the  Father's  needy  chil- 

APPLICATION.     ,  /^i      .      ,      T      1       1  1  ,       .         ,  , 

dren  or  on  Christ  s  little  brethren :  it  is  thus  that 
we  shall  best  redeem  our  charities  from  con- 
tempt, and  make  them  more  worthy  of  reward 
than  a  theatrical  performance'  to  the  blowing  of 
the  trumpet  of  vanity. 


SECOND    APPLICATION" 


TO    PEAYEE. 


173 


And  when  thou  prayest^  thou  shalt  not  be  as  the  hypocrites 
are;  for  they  love  to  pray  standing  in  the  synagogues  and  in 
the  corners  of  the  streets^  that  they  may  be  seen  of  men.  Verily, 
I  say  unto  you,  They  have  their  reward.  But  thou,  ivhen 
thou  prayest,  enter  into  thy  closet,  and  when  thou  hast  shut  thy 
door,  pray  to  thy  Father  Which  is  in  secret;  and  thy  Father 
Which  seeth  in  secret  shall  reward  thee  ^openly']. — Matt.  vi. 
5,6. 


174 


SECOND  APPLICATION :  TO  PHAYER. 


M 


ID  WAY  betwixt  the  giving  of  alms  to  men      part  n. 
and  the  fasting  which  chastens  one's  own      second 


flesh,  stands  that  central  and  most  vital  act  of  the  ^^^^^^^'^^^n- 

religious  life  which  more  than  any  other  expresses 

the  soul's  relation  to  God.^     Prayer  belongs  more 

exclusively  than   either  fasting   or   alms   to   the 

worship   of   God ;    and   of  all    the   usual   forms 

which   divine   worship   takes,   it   appears    to   be 

the   most   inward   and  sacred  to   secrecy.       The 

song  by  wdiich  praise  rises  on  waves  of  harmony 

to  heaven   needs  a  concert  of  practised  voices ; 

sacred  oratory  by  which  men  are  taught  or  stirred 

to  holiness  depends  on  the  sympathy  of  numbers, 

and  requires  at  least  the  two  or  three  in  whom 

Jesus  saw  the  rudiments  of  His  Church ;  the  sacra-  Matt,  xviii  20. 

ments,  too,  are  essentially  public  acts :  but  every 

solitude  becomes  a  house  of   prayer  when  the 

solitary  worshipper    realizes   that  it  is   a   house  Gten.  xxviii 

of  God.      Here  therefore  most  of  all,  everything 

should  be  real.     All  affectation  of  devoutness  is 

*  '  Eleemosyna,  tanquam  prsecipimm  officium  erga  proxiraum  ; 
oratio,  erga  Deum  ;  jejunium,  respectu  nostri.' — Bengel  in  loc. 

175 


APPLICATION. 


176  The  Lav)s  of  the  Kingdom. 

PARI  II.  offensive  ;  but  to  affect  to  hold  personal  inter- 
sEcoND  course  with  God,  to  pretend  that  we  are  speaking 
alone  with  Him,  when  we  are  doing  no  such 
thing  but  only  inviting  other  men  to  hear  us 
repeat  a  prayer,  is  unspeakably  offensive.  This 
is  to  thrust  our  insincerity  under  the  very  eye  of 
the  God  of  truth ;  to  call  His  special  attention  to 
a  farce ;  to  add  profanity  to  falsehood. 

It  may  have  been  because  prayer  belongs  so 
characteristically  to  the  spiritual  and  personal 
side  of  the  life  of  faith,  and  is  of  its  own  nature 
so  free  and  jealous  of  prescriptions,  that,  among 
the  minute  regulations  by  which  Mosaic  law 
ordered  all  other  parts  of  Hebrew  worship,  there 
occur  no  instructions  for  either  the  public  or  the 
private  petitions  of  the  people.-^  Yet  the  records 
of  Old  Testament  saints  are  full  of  proofs  that 
even  under  that  economy  of  localized  national 
worship,  as  at  all  other  periods,  religious  life 
found  its  expression  abundantl}^  in  unrestrained 
private  petitions ;  while  the  prayer  of  King 
Solomon  at  the  dedication  of  the  temple  amply 
shows  that  (with  or  without  unrecorded  direc- 
tions from  the  Mosaic  time)  individual  as  well 
as  national  requests  were  habitually  presented  to 
Jehovah  before  His  secret  shrine  and  at  the 
^  So  Braiine,  quoted  by  Stier,  Reden  Jesu,  in  loc. 


Prayer.  177 

central  seat   of   His   people's   worship.      In   the      part  n; 
earliest  periods,  no  set  times  for  private  prayer      second 
were  probably  observed,  nor  any  other  hallowed  -^^^^^^-^t^^-'^'- 
place  frequented  but  the  one  national  sanctuary. 
One  of  the  Davidic  psalms,  however,  speaks  of  Ps.  iv.  17. 
praying  in  the  evening,  in  the  morning,  and  at 
noon.     By  the  time  of  the  long  captivity,  we  find  Dan.  vi.  10, 11. 
that  the  habit  of  private  prayer  thrice  a  day,  at 
stated  hours,  had  become  recognised.     Traces  of 
a    still    more   frequent   observance   of   the   duty- 
appear  in  one  of  the  latest  psalms.      The  intro-  Ps.  cxix.  164. 
duction  of  synagogue  worship,  probably  soon  aftex? 
the   return  from  Babylon,^  by  providing  a  con- 
venient  place    for    retirement,    naturally   served 
to  confirm   the  custom  of  saying  all  prayers  in 
public,  which  in  the  rabbinical  schools   was   at 
length  worked  into   a  system.      To  this  prayer- 
system    of    later    Judaism    the    hypocrisy    con- 
demned by  our  Lord  came  ultimately  to  attach 
itself. 

In  order  to  understand  our  Lord  aright,  it  must 
be  borne  in  mind  that  His  words  apply  in  the 
first  place  to  personal  or  private  prayer.  It  is 
possible  that,  in  His  time  as  well  as  later,  the 
synagogues  were  open  for  public  prayer  meetings 
every  Monday  and  Thursday,  as  well  as  on  the 

^  See  tlie  Ai^t.  '  Synagogue  '  in  Smith's  Bible  Dictionary. 
M 


APPLICATION. 


178  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.  Sabbath-day ;  ^  and  ostentatious  religionists  who 
SECOND  preferred  to  throng  these  meetings  rather  than  to 
pray  in  private,  certainly  came  within  the  scope  of 
His  rebuke.  But  the  stated  assemblies  of  the  pious 
for  common  prayer  could  not  seem  censurable 
in  the  eyes  of  One  Who  was  Himself  accustomed 
to  attend  them.  Besides  this,  however,  the  doors 
of  the  synagogue  seem  to  have  stood  open,  as  to 
this  day  they  commonly  do, — as  the  doors  of  the 
mosque  and  of  the  Eoman  Catholic  church  stand 
open, — for  the  greater  part  of  every  day,  not  for 
public  but  for  private  devotion ;  and  it  was  first 
of  all  the  abuse  of  this  otherwise  convenient 
arrangement  by  hypocritical  worshippers  against 
which  Jesus  warned  His  followers.  To  the  pious 
Jew,  or  the  Jew  who  desired  to  be  esteemed 
pious,  custom  prescribed  the  repetition  of  certain 
forms  of  prayer  at  least  three  times  a  day. 
Modesty  and  true  devoutness  would  have  chosen 
to  observe  these  hours,  whenever  it  was  possible 
to  do  so,  in  the  privacy  of  home ;  but  the  Phari- 
sees deliberately  left  their  own  houses  for  the  sake 
of  being  seen  at  statutory  prayer  time  in  the 
open  synagogue.  Nor  was  this  all.  The  hour 
of  worship  might  surprise  a  man  when  passing 

^  On  these  later  Rabbinical  arrangements,  cf.  Tholuck,  Berg- 
predigt  in  loc. 


Prayer.  179 

on  a  needful  errand  along  the  street;  and,  without      part  ir. 
meaning  any  display,  a  very  conscientious  Jew      second 

.    ,  ,  .  ^         j^  i.1  1,    1        APPLICATION. 

might  stop,  and  turnmg  so  as  to  lace  tne  noiy 
temple,  recite  his  devotions  where  passers-by 
could  not  fail  to  see  him.  All  who  know  any- 
thing of  the  East  know  how  usual  is  this  practice 
among  pious  Mohammedans.  But,  as  it  happens 
to-day  among  Mohammedans,^  so  it  happened  then 
among  Jews :  publicity  encouraged  hypocrisy. 
Sanctimonious  persons,  who  coveted  a  repute  for 
sanctity,  took  care  to  be  pretty  frequently  on  the 
street,  especially  at  its  most  conspicuous  and  busy 
corners,  when  the  call  to  prayer  came ;  that,  with 
superfluous  punctuality  and  an  overdone  appear- 
ance of  devoutness,  they  might  perform  the  ap- 
pointed recitation  to  the  admiration  of  beholders. 
Nothing,  of  course,  about  the  present  religious 
habits  or  the  public  opinion  of  Western  nations 
encouras^es  or  would  even  tolerate  abuses  like 
these.  On  the  contrary,  we  have  banished  religion 
so  much  out  of  sight,  that  we  can  hardly  conceive 
how  such  practices  should  ever  have  become 
current.  Even  in  those  communions  which  still 
invite  the  faithful  to  say  their  private  prayers  in 

^  Cf.  on  the  evil  repute  which  very  devout  Moslems  have 
among  their  neighhours,  Thomson's  Land  and  Book,  p.  25 
(Lond.  1859). 


180  TJie  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PAET  II.  church,  I  do  not  know  that  a  hypocritical  parade 
SECOND      of  piety  is  at  all  a  common  result.      Certainly, 

APPLICATION.  Protestants  cannot  be  fairly  accused  of  frequenting 
prayer  meetings  for  the  purpose  of  attracting 
general  attention.  Here  and  there  no  doubt,  in 
religious  circles,  a  person  may  be  found  whose 
prominence  as  a  leader  in  prayer  is  only  a  cloak 
to  disguise  the  rogue ;  and  some  poor  pensioners 
of  the  church  may  be  tempted  by  the  hope  of  relief 
to  be  very  regular  in  their  attendance  on  public 
worship.  But,  speaking  generally,  the  temptation 
is  more  powerful  at  present  to  conceal  than  to 
parade  such  piety  as  exists  among  us.  The 
christian  boy,  for  example,  at  a  public  school; 
the  shopman  and  domestic  servant  who  share 
their  room  with  several  mates  ;  the  poor  believer 
who  finds  no  privacy  in  those  dens  which  we  call 
by  courtesy  the  homes  of  the  people :  these  are  in 
far  greater  risk  of  offending  Christ  by  not  praying 
at  all  than  by  praying  too  conspicuously.  We 
have  more  need  to  have  pressed  upon  us  that 

Matt.  X.  32, 33,  Other  law  of  confession  which  enters  to  limit  and 

and  par. :  E.om.  ,  ,    ,  i       i  o 

X.  10.  complement  the  law  oi  secrecy. 

At  the  same  time,  the  error  which  lay  at  the 
root  of  Pharisaic  ostentation  in  prayer  is  too 
subtle  to  be  ever  wholly  banished,  and  the  correc- 
tion which  our  Lord  supplied  is  too  precious  ever 


Prayer.  181 

to  be  forgotten.     At  the  root  of  tlie  abominable      part  n. 
affectation  which  vitiated  the  prayers  of  many      second 

-TT-  ,  -1  T  •  APPLICATION. 

among  His  contemporaries,  lay,  as  1  conceive, 
this  mistake  :  That  instead  of  regarding  prayer 
as  a  spontaneous  childlike  utterance  of  depend- 
ance  upon  God,  which  has  no  value  in  itsel/,  but 
only  as  a  medium  of  intercourse  ;  men  had  come 
to  reckon  prayer  among  the  constituent  acts  of  a 
man's  righteousness,  pleasing  or  meritorious  for 
its  own  sake  in  the  eyes  of  Heaven.  From 
speaking  in  these  verses  of  hypocritical  saying  of 
prayers,  Jesus  diverges  in  those  which  follow  to  Vers.  7,  8. 
the  parallel  abuse  of  superstitious  repetition  of 
prayers.  That  is  strictly  an  excursus  from  the 
main  thought  of  the  present  section  ;  but  both 
abuses  spring  from  the  same  source.  It  is  one 
blunder  respecting  the  nature  of  prayer  and 
where  its  value  lies,  that  led  the  Pharisees,  as  it 
always  has  led  men,  both  to  praying  which  is 
superstitious  and  to  praying  which  is  hypocritical ; 
to  prayers  by  rote  and  prayers  for  show.  The 
Jew  who,  like  a  heathen,  recited  over  and  over 
again  the  same  words,  did  so  because,  like  a 
heathen,  he  had  come  to  attach  merit  or  value  to 
the  mere  act  of  praying.  Prayer,  that  is  to  say, 
had  become  in  his  eyes,  no  longer  a  simple  request 
addressed  by  a  child  to  his  Father,  useful  only  as 


APPLICATION. 


182  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.  it  carried  to  the  Father  the  child's  desire ;  but  a 
SECOND  work  of  religion,  a  good  action,  itself  prescribed 
as  a  test  or  sign  of  godliness,  the  performance  of 
which  would  operate,  if  not  as  a  charm,  at  least 
as  a  merit,  to  win  by  its  acceptableness  the 
blessing  of  God.  For  this  reason,  he  prayed  very 
often  and  very  long ;  for  this  reason  also  he 
prayed  where  men  could  see  him  pray.  Prayer 
viewed  as  a  soul's  petition  to  God  is  of  its .  own 
nature  a  private  thing.  Its  value  lies  in  its  being 
heard  and  understood  by  Him.  It  craves  no 
overhearing  ear,  for  to  other  ears  than  His  it 
carries  no  meaning  and  has  no  value.  On  the 
contrary,  it  rather  shrinks  from,  than  courts,  the 
observation  of  any  third  party.  So  long  as  you 
only  pray  because  you  are  in  need,  and  because 
you  cannot  help  telling  God  what  it  is  you  need, 
prayer  continues  to  be .  an  affair  of  two  :  it  lies 
between  the  petitioner  and  the  Giver.  It  is  only 
when  prayers  have  become  sei'vices  or  acts  of 
religion,  by  the  number  or  the  length  or  the  regu- 
larity or  the  fervency  of  which  a  man  makes 
himself  pleasing  to  God  and  exhibits  to  men  the 
quality  of  his  piety,  that  there  can  arise  the 
slightest  temptation  to  take  one's  private  devo- 
tions into  pubKc  places  or  say  them  aloud  for 
others  to  hear. 


APPLICATION. 


Prayer.  183 

It  is  at  this  point  that  we  discover  the  precise 
bearing  of  that  corrective  which  our  Lord  supplied.  second 
To  this  central  utterance  of  spiritual  life,  He 
applied  His  law  of  secrecy  in  religion.  Here,  if 
anywhere,  that  law  is  in  its  place.  As  all  religi- 
ous acts,  to  be  worth  anything,  must  have  God 
for  their  sole  spectator,  so  eminently  must  this 
act,  which  is  the  very  heart  of  our  religion,  be 
done  in  secret.  The  true  type  of  all  prayer  there- 
fore is  solitary  prayer.  Its  favourite  resort  is  not 
the  synagogue,  but  the  closet.  It  is,  to  go  to  the 
essence  of  the.  thing,  just  a  word  spoken  to  that 
Father  Wliose  characteristic  is  that  He  is  most 
with  us  when  we  are  in  secret,  and  is  felt  to  see 
us  there  most  closely  where  no  one  else  can  see  us. 
But  a  word  of  request  simply  spoken  to  God 
alone  never  can  be  construed  into  a  meritorious 
performance  or  exalted  into  a  department  of 
human  'righteousness.'  To  drive  prayer  back 
behind  a  shut  closet  door  is  to  revive  the  true 
conception  of  it  and  to  cut  off  occasion  from  both 
these  later  misgrowths,  the  public  saying  of 
prayers,  which  is  ostentation,  and  the  idle  repeat- 
ing of  prayers,  which  is  superstition. 

I  have  said  that  it  is  with  private,  not  social, 
prayer  our  Lord  is  here  dealing.  The  abuses  He 
corrects  were  abuses  which  clung  less  to  the  public 


184  Tlie  Lavjs  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.  than  to  the  individual  worship  of  His  country- 
men. It  is  our  personal  intercourse  with  God 
which  He  expressly  banishes  from  open  gaze  into 
the  closed  chamber.  ISJ'o  inference,  therefore,  to 
the  discouragement  of  family  or  social  or  congre- 
gational worship  can  legitimately  be  drawn,  or  by 
any  reasonable  men  ever  has  been  drawn,  from 
His  words.  In  strict  truth,  however,  even  social 
prayer,  in  which  many  worshippers  nnite  in 
one  petition,  remains  subject  to  the  same  law  of 
secrecy,  '^o  two  or  more  Christians  have  any  better 
right  tlian  a  single  Christian  has  to  stand  and  per- 
form their  devotions  in  a  conspicuous  place,  for  the 
purpose  af  attracting  the  attention  of  those  who 
are  not  worshippers.^  The  ordinary  rule  of  social 
as  well  as  of  personal  prayer  is,  that  it  be  more 
or  less  concealed  from  mere  spectators,  never 
obtruded  on  their  notice,  least  of  all  performed 
for  their  admiration.  The  place  of  prayer  may 
be  vast  as  a  cathedral ;  but  the  congregation 
is  presumed  to  be  alone.  The  worshippers  have 
but  one  heart,  as  well  as  one  voice.     A  common 

^  I  do  not  mean,  of  course,  to  reflect  upon  the  eff"orts  of  street 
prea  hers  to  gain  an  audience  for  the  gospel,  by  singing  or  pray- 
ing at  street  corners  ;  because  these  are  to  be  justified  by  quite 
other  considerations.  They  contemplate  a  very  different  end 
from  the  admiration  of  non-worshipping  bystanders.  They  aim 
at  turning  bystanders  into  worshippers. 


Prayer.  185 

desire  makes  of  many  petitioners  one  petitioner,      part  ii. 
No  one's  attention  is  distracted  by  the  presence      second 
of  a  single  onlooker.      The  people  bow  in  their  ^^^^^^^^"^^'• 
great  house  of  prayer  just  as  each  man  bows  in 
his  little  closet,  before  Him  AVho  still  is  seeing 
in  secret.    ]N'ot  he  who  reverently  joins  his  desire 
with  the  desire  of  his  fellows ;  but  he  who  while 
professing   to   pray  with   his    neighbours    allows 
himself  to  become  a  mere  spectator  of  his  neigh- 
bour's prayer :  he  it  is  who  really  violates  the 
privacy  of  the  House  of  God. 

After  all,  then,  it  is  the  closet,  and  not  the 
church,  which  is  the  primary  or  typical  oratory. 
Spiritual  life  never  continues  to  be  individual 
only ;  it  becomes  also  social :  but  it  is  individual 
first  of  all.  It  is  born  in  the  secrecy  of  the  soul ; 
it  is  nurtured  in  the  secrecy  of  the  closet.  Con- 
stituted as  men  are,  it  is  impossible  to  be  in  the 
presence  of  others  so  absolutely  unconscious  of 
witnesses,  so  perfectly  spontaneous,  so  unaffectedly 
true,  as  we  may  be  where  only  God  can  see  us. 
To  know  how  far  the  devotional  feeling  of  which 
we  are  conscious  in  social  worship  is  genuine,  it 
is  needful  to  carry  it  into  the  cool,  hushed,  and 
lonely  presence-chamber  of  the  secret  Father,  and 
submit  it  there  to  the  scrutiny  of  His  testing  eye 
and  of  our  own.     The  habit  of  worshipping  ex- 


186  TJu  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.      clusively  in  the  presence  of  even  the  nearest  and 

SECOND      most  congenial  of  fellow- Christians — supposing  it 

■  possible  for  a  Christian — would  put  in  peril  the 

integrity  and  simplicity   of  any   man's  religion. 

It  would  beo'et  an  evil  consciousness  of  self  at 

o 

the  most  solemn  moments  of  life.  It  would 
hinder  religious  emotion  from  penetrating  beneath 
the  surface,  and  by  keeping  it  dependent  on  the 
sympathy  of  others,  would  degrade  it  into  a 
sentiment.  It  would  tempt  him  to  look  more  to 
the  form  than  to  the  spirit  of  his  worship.  It 
would  be  apt  to  confuse  the  singleness  of  his 
regard  to  God,  as  the  Witness,  no  less  than  the 
Object,  of  his  adoration.  Above  all,  it  would 
interfere  with  the  outspokenness  and  utterly  un- 
reserved frankness  with  which  each  child  of  God 
should  address  his  heavenly  Father.  Eeligion 
may  be  said  to  commence  when  a  soul  ceases  to 
keep  back  any  secret  from  God.  To  live  always 
bare  to  the  soul's  core  in  His  sight  is  the  condition 
of  healthful  religion.  To  speak  out  in  His  ear 
what  cannot  be  spoken  in  another's — those  incom- 
municable things  which  only  each  man's  own 
1  Cor.  ii.  11 ;  c.  spirit  knows,  and  which  can  be  told  even  to  God 
only  in  such  inarticulate  groans  as  need  a  divine 
Interpreter :  this  is  that  manner  of  praying  which 
is  a  necessity  in  the  religious    life,  and  which 


Prayer.  187 

can  only  be  reached  in  secret.      The  reason  for      part  ii. 
this    necessity  runs  down  into   that  mysterious      second 

T,  1    •    1  1  1  1      •  ,     APPLICATION. 

personality  which  makes  every  human  being  at 
the  last  resort  a  solitude,  impervious  to  his  fellow, 
accessible  only  to  his  God.  Largely  indeed  it  is 
with  sin,  the  peculiar  consciousness  of  which  each 
man  takes  to  be  an  unparalleled  and  incommuni- 
cable experience  of  his  own;  with  sin,  and  with 
the  secret  struc^orle  he  has  to  make  ac^ainst  it, 
that  the  solitary  confessions  and  petitions  of  a 
Christian  must  for  the  present  be  occupied.  Yet 
this  necessity  for  solitary  prayer  is  so  far  from 
resting  on  the  evil  state  of  man  that  it  is  rather 
found  to  increase  as  men  make  progress  toward 
perfection ;.  while  the  memorable  example  of  our 
Lord  Himself,  throwing  back  light  upon  His  words, 
demonstrates  how  indispensable  even  to  a  perfect 
Son  of  God  was  such  retirement  from  human 
sight  into  the  solitary  presence  of  His  Father. 

This  retreat  therefore  from  all  human  presences 
back  into  that  One  Presence  where  we  can  be 
nakedly  ourselves,  and  can  breathe  all  secrets 
into  an  ear  which  perfectly  understands,  and  lean 
all  weakness  upon  a  bosom  which  perfectly  loves  ; 
this  retreat  which  Jesus  Himself  was  forced  on  Cf.  Mark  i.  35; 

,      ,  .    ,  ,         ,      Luke  vi.  12; 

several  occasions  to  seek  by  night   on  a  lonely  Matt.  xiv.  23, 
hill  or  in  an  orchard,  is  not  only  the  sweetest  their  parallels. 


SECOND 
APPLICATION 


188  The  Laius  of  the  Kingdom. 

luxury  of  genuine  spiritual  life,  but  its  supreme 
necessity.  The  place  to  which  a  man  may  retire 
to  be  with  God  is  of  such  inferior  moment  that 
in  case  of  need  any  place  will  answer.  To  be 
literally  without  human  companionship  or  the 
risk  of  observation  is  no  doubt  most  desirable. 
Among  the  numerous  evils  which  spring  from 
the  overcrowding  of  both  the  urban  and  the  rural 
poor  into  insufficient  dwellings,  the  absence  of  a 
private  room,  or  at  least  of  a  noiseless  and  undis- 
turbed corner  for  prayer,  is  not  to  be  overlooked. 
In  the  country,  to  be  sure,  one  can  generally  walk 
Gen.  xxiv.  63.  alone,  like  Isaac,  in  the  fields ;  but  it  is  hard  to 
see  what  retreat  from  intrusion  is  left  to  the  pent- 
up  city  poor,  whose  wretched  lodgings  do  not  even 
boast  that  store-room  with  a  door  to  it  which 
Jesus  took  for  granted  might  be  found  in  any 
ordinary  Jewish  home.^  If  it  v/ere  not  too  entire 
a  departure  from  English  habits,  one  w^ould  be 
tempted  to  wish  that  our  churches  in  crowded 
localities  could  be  utilized  on  week-days  for 
private  prayer,  or  else   some   smaller  and  more 

1  The  word  rendered  '  closet '  is  not  that  by  which  the  '  upper 
room, '  or  guest-room,  of  a  Jewish  house  is  commonly  indicated 
{vTipMov),  but  TcifAilov  (or  Tocy-nlov),  rendered  'storehouse  '  in  Luke 
xii.  24,  and  'secret  chamber'  in  Matt.  xxiv.  26.  It  probably  is 
purposely  general,  and  signifies  any  small  or  subsidiary  room 
not  usually  employed  for  living  in. 


Prayer.  189 

secluded  oratories  provided,  to  which  weary  souls 
might  retire  at  a  spare  moment,  in  search  of  that 
peace  and  spiritual  refreshment  which  must  be 
sought  in  vain  where  the  voices  of  boisterous 
neighbours  are  always  audible  through  the  frail 
partition,  and  the  tiny  strip  of  domestic  floor  room 
must  serve  the  ends  at  once  of  kitchen  and  of 
nursery.  It  is  quite  beyond  any  one's  power  to 
estimate  how  far  this  mere  want  of  opportunity 
for  retirement  is  daily  operating  to  drive  all 
religious  reflection  and  private  prayer  out  of  the 
lives  of  thousands  of  our  English  poor.  What  is 
so  excessively  inconvenient  is  sure  to  be  treated 
by  most  people  as  a  practical  impossibility.  At 
the  same  time,  it  is  never  really  impossible  to  be 
alone  with  God.  To  be  silent  and  to  think, 
always  means  to  be  alone.  The  seclusion  which 
we  may  make  within  our  own  bosom  is  a  closer 
solitude  than  that  of  bolted  doors,-^  And  the  soul 
that  has  once  pushed  its  way  with  struggle  and 
pain  through  that  guilty  silence  which  like  a  wall 
holds  back  the  impenitent  from  the  face  of  God, 
and  has  once  tasted  the  inexpressible  deliciousness 
of  being  confidential  with  its  reconciled  Father ; 

^  So  some  of  the  Fathers,  as  Origen  and  Augustine,  expounded 
the  '  closet ; '  but  a  literal  removal  iuto  solitude  must  be  in- 
tended, where  it  is  practicable. 


SECOND 
APPLICATION. 


APPLICATION. 


190  TJic  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

that  soul  must  and  will  again  and  again  make 
SECOND  for  itself  times  and  places  and  methods  for  getting 
back  into  sweet  colloquy  with  the  secret  Author 
of  its  life,  with  the  only  One  before  Whom  it  has 
nothing  to  conceal,  and  from  Whom  it  has  every- 
thing to  hope. 

Our  Father  Who  is  in  secret  loves  to  be  the 
one  privileged  Intimate  of  each  heart  among  His 
children.  In  the  preference  for  Him  which 
forces  a  man  to  be  dissatisfied  with  all  meaner 
company ;  in  the  trustfulness  which  dares  to  teU 
Him  everything;  in  that  self- asserting  irrepressible 
instinct  of  childship  which  must  cry  out  to  its 
unseen  Father,  though  philosophy  should  dis- 
suade, and  reason  should  lose  its  way  in  its  effort 
to  justify  the  cry :  in  all  this  the  paternal  Heart 
on  high  finds  such  delight  as  paternal  hearts 
below  would  find  ;  and  each  low  breathino-  which 
goes  up  unseen  from  any  tender  tearful  penitent 
or  from  a  warm  affectionate  worshipper,  goes, 
like  a  sigfh  from  some  heart  of  little  child    too 

o 

fond  to  speak,  straight  unto  the  Father. 

He  shall  reward  it,  said  the  Son  of  His  love. 
But  I  trust  we  know  that  He  doth  reward  it ; 
not  '  openly '  indeed,  nor  always  by  manifest  ac- 
complishment of  such  things  as  our  ignorance 
may  solicit ;  never  perhaps  in  such  ways  as  can 


APPLICATION. 


Prayer.  191 

be  tabulated  in  our  statistics ;  yet  is  His  response  part  h. 
none  the  less  certain,  because  it  is  as  secret  as  our  second 
prayer  was  secret,  felt  only  by  the  instinct  of 
love,  and  given  only  to  the  heart  of  the  child. 
So  surely  as  he  who  hath  been  born  of  God  must 
have  that  to  say  unto  his  Father  which  can  be 
spoken  in  no  other  ear,  so  surely  shall  the  great 
Father  make  such  answer  within  His  child  as  it 
is  not  given  to  any  stranger  to  surmise.  There 
are  more  things  passing  betwixt  heaven  and  earth 
than  are  dreamt  of  in  our  philosophy  ;  and  divine 
love,  like  the  earthly,  has  secrets  of  its  own. 
Wouldst  thou  know  them  for  thyself  ?  Then 
'  enter  into  thy  closet,  and  when  thou  hast  shut  thy 
door,'  learn  there  how  to  'pray  to  thy  Father 
Which  is  in  secret;'  for  thee  also  'thy  Father 
Which  seeth  in  secret  shall  reward.' 


EXCUESUS 


THE    MODEL    PEAYEE. 


But  when  ye  pray,  use  not  vain  repetitions,  as  the  heathen 
do :  for  they  think  that  they  shall  he  heard  for  their  much 
speaking.  Be  not  ye  therefore  like  unto  them:  for  your 
Father  knoweth  what  things  ye  have  need  of  before  ye  ask 
Him.  After  this  manner  therefore  pray  ye:  ''Our  Father, 
Which  art  in  heaven!  Hallowed  he  Thy  Name:  Thy  kingdom 
come :  Thy  will  he  done  in  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven :  Give  us 
this  day  our  daily  hread:  And  forgive  -us  our  dehts,  as  we 
forgive  our  dehtors :  And  lead  us  not  into  temptation,  but 
deliver  us  from  evil:  [For  Thine  is  the  kingdom  and  the 
poicer  and  the  glory  for  ever,  Amen'].''  For  if  ye  forgive  men 
their  trespasses,  your  heavenly  Father  will  also  forgive  you: 
hut  if  ye  forgive  not  m^n  their  trespasses,  neither  will  your 
Father  forgive  your  trespasses. — Matt.  vi.  7-15. 

Cf,  Luke  xi.  1-4. 


194 


EXCURSUS:  THE  MODEL  PRAYER. 

"DEFORE  leaving  the  subject  of  prayer,  to  part  ii. 
-*-^  apply  His  law  of  secrecy  to  fasting  as  excursus. 
the  third  constituent  in  Hebrew  '  righteousness/ 
Jesus  turns  aside  from  His  rebuke  of  hypocrisy 
to  forbid  another  abuse,  no  less  inconsistent  with 
the  true  idea  of  worship.  Superstition  is  a  disease 
as  inveterate  in  every  false  religion  as  hypocrisy 
is  in  the  true.  But  although  it  has  always 
attached  itself  by  preference  to  heathen  faiths^ 
there  is  enough  of  native  heathenism  in  every  hu- 
man heart  to  develop  superstitious  practices  even 
in  the  worship  of  the  true  God.  Degenerate  Juda- 
ism, like  degenerate  Christianity,  had  its  occasional 
paganism.  The  notion  that  God  is  a  Being  Who 
can  be  wrought  upon  by  the  mechanical  iteration 
of  petitions  till  they  become  wearisome,  was 
indeed  too  foreign  from  the  spiritual  monotheism 
of  Israel  ever  to  become  popular.  From  the 
earliest  instance  in  Scripture  of  vain  repetition, 
when  Baal's  Phoenician  priests  called  on  his  name  i  Kings  xviii 

26 

from  morn  till  noon,  down  to   the  latest,   when 

195 


196  The  Lavjs  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.      Diana's  votaries  at  Epliesus  shouted  out  her  great- 

ExcuRsus.    ness  'about  the   space  of  two  hours/   it  is  on 

Acts  xix.  34.     heathen  ground  that  we  find  it  flourish.     The  fact, 

Eccies.  V.  1,2;  however,  that  Hebrew  teachers  of  various  ages 

andtheKlbbis!  found  it  needful  to  warn  their  countrymen  against 

it,  suasests  that  devout  Jews  must  often  have 

betrayed  some  tendency  to   fall  into   this   error. 

See  p.  181.       The  truth  is,  that,   as  we  have   seen,  it  has  at 

bottom  the  same  root  as  hypocrisy.     A  religion 

of  forms,  such  as  the  Pharisees  practised,  runs 

very  readily  into  a  religion  of  charms,  such  as 

pagans   believe  in.     When  the  Pharisee  recited 

Matt,  xxiii.  14.  his  '  long  prayer '  in  order  to  appear  devout,  his 

prayer  was  only  said,  not  prayed.    Whatever  trust 

he  placed  in  its  efficacy,  therefore,  was  likely  to 

rest,  not  on  its  sincerity,  but   on  its'  length  or 

frequency ;  and  the  more  he  expected  from  his 

devotions,  he  would  be  only  the  more  apt  to  rely 

upon  the  reiteration  of  them.    .  Forms  of  prayer, 

which,  in  order  to  please  men,  had  been  at  first 

repeated  as  a  pretence,  would  thus  come  to  be 

repeated,  in  order  to  please  God,  as  a  charm.     In 

either  case  prayer  became  a  vain  thing  :  only  its 

vanity  was  in  the  one  case  the  vanity  of  falsehood ; 

in  the  other,  the  vanity  of  folly.      Betwixt  these 

two  poles,  all  false  religion  for  ever  vibrates. 

Por  both  hypocritical  and  superstitious  prayers, 


Tlu  Model  Prayer.  197 

the   remedy    is    similar.     A    just  conception   of      part  ir. 

what  prayer  is  as  the  offering  up  of    childlike    excursus. 

desire  to  One  Who  is  in  secret,  will  always  save 

us,  if  we    are   faithful   to   it,    from   saying   our 

prayers  'for  a  pretence.'     A- just  conception  of 

His  character  to  Whom  our  prayers  are  offered, 

will   equally  save  us  from  saying    them   as    an 

incantation.    The  heathen  '  think  that  they  shall 

be  heard  for  their  much  speaking,'    because  they 

have  a  heathenish  notion  of  the  Divine  Being. 

They  suppose  Him  to  be  ignorant  of  their  need 

till  He   is    told;    disinclined  to    help  them  till 

He  is  importuned ;  capricious,  so  that  He  must 

be  humoured  ;   or  indolent,  so  that  He  can   be  Cf.  ouundere 

Deos:  Terence. 

pestered  into  compliance.  It  is  nothing  else  but 
a  parallel  mistake  as  to  the  nature  of  God  which 
is  made  by  those  ignorant  Christians  w^ho  duti- 
fully repeat  every  day  certain  formal  petitions 
which  express  no  real  desire,  or  mumble  over 
the  same  form  of  prayer  scores  of  times  without 
stopping,  under  the  belief  that  such  a  mechanical 
style  of  worship  is  pleasing  to  the  Eternal.  Surely 
it  is  no  less  unworthy  of  the  Father  to  fancy  that 
He  can  be  gratified  by  empty  phrases  which 
mean  nothing,  or  that  He  will  find  some  merit 
to  reward  in  the  pattering  of  beads,  than  it  w^ould 
be  to  attract  His  attention  by  shouting   or  win 


198  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

His  favour  by  self4aceration,  like  the  priests  of 
Baal.  To  '  acquaint '  oneself  with  the  true  God 
is  here,  as  in  so  many  things,  to  '  be  at  peace.' 
Jesus  discloses  the  Father  to  us  ;  and  our  worship 
becomes  rational  by  becoming  filial.  Our  Father 
knoAvs  before  we  speak  what  it  is  that  we  would 
have,  and  before  we  are  willing  to  ask,  He  is 
ready  to  bestow.  He  needs  neither  to  be 
informed,  nor  to  be  coaxed,  nor  to  be  wrought 
upon.  He  waits  indeed  for  the  voice  of  His 
child  to  be  lifted  up  in  a  lowly  sense  of  want, 
with  earnest  desire  for  a  gift ;  and  that  the  child 
may  be  led  to  lift  up  a  voice  of  prayer,  the  Father 
may  often  find  it  meet  to  leave  its  sore  need  for 
a  while  unfilled  :  but  He  neither  waits  for,  nor 
can  be  in  the  least  moved  by,  anything  else. 

Of  course,  this  true  and  perfect  fatherliness  in 
God,  while  it  condemns  as  futile  all  repetition 
merely  for  speaking's  sake,  does  not  condemn, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  encourages,  the  importunity 
of  earnest  and  even  passionate  longing.  He  to 
Whom  we  pray  knows  us  too  well  and  loves  us  too 
much  to  be  displeased  when  the  overfull  heart 
of  His  child  cannot  content  itself  with  few  or 
cold  words,  said  once  and  said  no  more ;  but 
i\:att.  xx\'i.  39- like  the  Son  in  the  olive-yard,  sends  up  petition 

41  ;  Heb.  v.  7 ;  ...  ,  it.-  -it 

cf.    att.  xi.  12.  on  petition  m  spontaneous  reduplication,  mingled 


The  Model  Praijer.  199 

too  with  siicli  '  strong  crying  and  tears/  as  part  ii. 
though  the  soul  would,  with  violence  not  to  be  kxcuksus. 
gainsaid,  besiege  the  very  gate  of  heaven.  -^  God 
has  as  little  need  to  be  importuned  as  He  has  to 
be  informed ;  yet  for  the  same  reason  that  He 
would  have  us  pray  at  all,  would  He  have  us 
pray  with  the  fervency  and  frequency  of  an  Jas.  v.  16, 
'  inwrought'  desire.  He  who  has  no  belief  in  God 
will  not  pray  to  Him  at  all.  He  who  has  some 
misshapen  belief  in  Him  as  other  than  He  is, 
may  use  prayer  as  a  meritorious  or  a  magical 
instrument  for  the  securing  of  benefits.  But  the 
christian  man,  who  trusts  in  the  perfect  know- 
ledge and  kindness  of  God  as  his  Father,  and 
who  knows  that  prayer  is  nothing  but  the 
unfettered  spontaneous  utterance  in  his  Father's 
ear  of  all  that  the  soul,  when  blown  upon 
by  the  breath  of  God,  can  feel  or  wish,  will 
neither  force  himself  to  repeat  prayers  when  he 
desires  nothing,  nor  restrain  himself  from  any 
fashion  of  praying  or  continuance  in  it,  which 
is  prompted  by  genuine  emotion.  He  Who 
inspires  desire,  may  well  be  trusted  to  understand 
and  to  excuse  its  utterances. 


1  To  the  point  are  Augustine's  words,  quoted  by  Meyer,  in  loc.  : 
Absit  ab  oratione  multa  locutio,  sed  non  desit  multa  precatio, 
si  fervens  perseveret  intentio. 


200  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.  It  was,  in  the  first  instance,  as  a  pattern  of  what 

EXCURSUS.  OTir  prayers  ought  to  be,  if  we  would  avoid  this 
fault  of  heathenish  repetition,  that  our  Lord  here 
introduced  the  form  which  we  are  accustomed  to 
call  by  His  name.  On  a  subsequent  occasion, 
uke  xi.  1,  2.  indeed,  mentioned  by  St.  Luke,  He  showed  that 
He  had  designed  it  to  be  used  for  a  liturgy, 
as  well  as  a  model ;  since,  when  His  followers 
begged  that  He  would  do  as  the  Baptist  and 
.  other  Jewish  masters  had  done — would  teach 
them  words  to  pray  in.  He  dictated  substantially 
the  same  petitions  which  He  had  given  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  bade  them  repeat 
these  when  they  prayed.  We  have  therefore 
ample  warrant  for  either  the  public  or  the  private 
employment  of  the  very  words  of  this  divine 
liturgy,  as  often  as  in  our  prayers  we  feel  our 
need  of  such  assistance.  We  shall  also  be  justi- 
fied, I  think,  in  taking  its  petitions  to  be  a  divine 
directory  for  all  prayer.  Our  Lord  can  hardly 
have  intended  to  restrict  His  rubric,  '  After 
this  manner  pray  ye,'  to  mean  only.  After  this 
manner  of  brevity  and  simplicity  in  style  ;  but 
also,  After  this  manner  of  thought  and  desire. 
When  Jesus  did  by  us  as  we  do  by  the  little 
ones — put  (so  to  say)  our  hands  together,  and 
bade  us  look  up  into  the  sky  and  say  after  Him 


The  Model  Prayer.  201 

in  simple  phrase,  '  Our  Father,  Which  art  in  part  ii. 
Heaven  ; '  He  could  not  but  set  ns  an  example  as  excursus. 
perfect  in  the  matter,  as  it  is  in  the  manner,  of  it. 
In  the  first  instance,  however,  it  is  to  the  form 
rather  than  to  the  contents  of  this  model,  that 
the  connection  compels  our  attention.  Because 
our  christian  prayers  are  not  to  be  like  those  of 
heathens,  '  therefore '  we  are  to  order  them  after 
the  fashion  of  this  standard.  That  must  mean, 
that  our  prayers  are  to  be  brief,  direct,  com- 
prehensive, orderly,  and  real.  Very  brief  is 
the  model  He  sets,  according  to  that  word 
of  Solomon's :  '  God  is  in  heaven,  and  thou  Eccles.  v.  2. 
upon  earth ;  therefore  let  thy  words  be  few.' 
The  youngest  memory  is  not  burdened  to  retain 
these  '  few  words.'  Each  clause  is  perfect  in 
terseness,  stripped  bare  of  every  word  not  indis- 
pensable, and  looks  alongside  our  overloaded 
devotional  phraseology  like  tlie  skeleton  of  a 
prayer.  There  is  absolutely  no  repetition  ;  the 
petitioner  moves  at  once  from  each  naked  but 
weighty  request  to  the  next.  How  direct,  too,  is 
every  word  !  As  though  the  suppliant  kept  silence 
till  he  quite  clearly  saw  what  it  was  he  needed 
to  ask,  and  having  simply  asked  for  it  without 
vagueness  or  circumlocution,  was  silent  again. 
One  feels  as  if  a  great  pause  ought  to  separate 


202  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.  the  several  clauses ;  a  pause  to  be  filled  up 
EXCURSUS,  with  calm  thought  and  the  preparation  of  the 
heart  for  a  new  request.  It  is  from  this  back- 
ground of  reverent  meditative  silence  that  the 
petitions  appear  to  go  up  at  intervals — each  one 
piercing  heaven  like  an  even-feathered  arrow 
shot  by  a  strong  arm.  In  every  clause,  too, 
what  a  world  of  desire  is  shut  up  !  No  more 
than  six  requests,  or  seven  at  most  ;^  yet  though 
the  words  might  be  lisped  by  infant's  lips, 
the  whole  wide  round  of  human  want  and  of 
christian  desire  is  traversed  and  gathered  up. 
Each  clause  mioht  stand  as  the  title  to  an  entire 
chapter  in  the  universal  prayer-book  of  the 
Church ;  for  under  these  half-dozen  comprehen- 
sive head-lines  you  may  range  all  the  possible 
supplications,  however  varied,  of  God's  vast  chris- 
tian family.  The  fulness  of  devotional  longing 
condensed  into  each  petition  neither  narrows 
the  worshipper's  horizon  nor  obscures  his  logical 
vision;  for  in  this  prayer,  all  those  objects  for 
which  men  ought  to  ask  find  a  place,  and  each 

^  In  the  "West,  they  have  commonly  been  reckoned  as  six  ;  in 
the  East,  as  seven.  Were  it  not  for  the  ixxa.  in  ver.  13,  one  could 
hardly  be  persuaded  to  treat  so  splendid  a  prayer  as  *  Deliver 
us  from  the  evil'  as  only  a  repetition  in  more  positive  and 
general  terms  of  the  preceding  words  :  *  Lead  us  not  into  temp- 
tation. ' 


The  Model  Prayer.  203 

its  proper  place.  From  things  divine  to  things  part  h. 
human,  from  temporal  to  spiritual  need,  the  excursus. 
well-ordered  sentences  progress.  Sober  judgment 
keeps  its  hand  even  on  the  movements  of  devout 
emotion;  and  while  nothing  is  forgotten,  there 
is  nothing  overstrained.  In  a  word,  the  most 
intense  reality  characterizes  this  model  of  prayer ; 
arising  from  the  concentration  of  a  man's  whole 
nature — intellect,  spirit,  and  purpose — all  bent 
to  know  what  things  are  the  most  desirable,  and, 
with  childlike  straightforwardness  and  such  ab- 
sorption as  renders  the  petitioner  unconscious  of 
others,  to  beg  those  things  from  the  Father  in 
heaven.      '  After  this  manner,  therefore,  pray  ye.' 

When  from  its  form  we  pass  to  the  contents 
of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  still  carrying  in  our  hand 
as  a  clue  this  rulin^  thousjht,  that  it  is  the 
type  upon  which  all  prayers  are  in  their  own 
way  to  be  modelled,  we  find  it  still  more  full 
of  teaching. 

1.  The  invocation,  by  the  name  which  it  gives 
to  God  and  the  terms  in  which  it  teaches  us  to 
address  Him,  gives  the  key-note  of  christian 
supplication.  It  is  for  this  reason  the  most 
distinctively  christian  part  of  the  whole.  The 
six  petitions,  if  not  all  borrowed  (as  the  first  and 


204  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.  second  of  them  are  said  to  be  ^)  from  rabbinical  forms 
EXCURSUS,  of  prayer  which  may  be  as  old  as  Jesus'  day,  are  at 
least  conceived  in  a  Hebrew  quite  as  much  as  in 
a  christian  spirit.  They  are  too  catholic  to  wear 
any  novel  or  peculiar  colour.  They  belong  to  the 
new  dispensation,  but  to  that  part  of  it  which  it 
shares  with  the  old.  They  are  in  place  on  chris- 
tian, but  not  out  of  place  on  Jewish,  lips.  The 
doxology,  on  the  other  hand,  which  appears  to 
have  been  added,  in  the  East  at  least,  at  a  very 
early  date,^  in  order  to  adapt  the  prayer  to  litur- 
gical use  in  the  public  worship  of  the  Church,  is 
so  Jewish  in  its  form  that  it  may  have  been,  or 
probably  was,  condensed  from  the  words  with 
1  Chron.  xxix.  which  King  David  blessed  Jehovah  on  the  day 
of  his  successor's  coronation.  Had  it  been  desired 
to  append  some  concluding  clause  which  should 
express  the  natural  response  of  every  christian 
heart  to  all  those  requests  which  Jesus  here  puts 
into  the  Christian's  mouth,  the  appropriate  phrase 

'  For  the  evidence  of  this,  see  references  in  Tholuck,  Grotius, 
and  others. 

2  The  authority  of  the  best  mss.  (Vat.,  Sin.,  D,  etc.)  com- 
pel us,  1  fancy,  to  reject  the  doxology  from  the  text,  as  Tisch- 
endorf,  Olshausen,  Meyer,  Tholuck,  and  most  modern  scholars 
do.  Its  absence  in  all  the  Latin  Fathers  showed  that  it  can 
only  have  gained  a  late  currency  in  the  Western  Church.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  found  in  the  Syriac  Peschito,  supposed  to 
date  from  the  second  century. 


The  Model  Praijer.  205 

would  have  been  one  bearing  on  the  mediatorial      part  ii. 
propitiation  and  advocacy  of  Jesus  Himself.     ISTo    excursus. 
express  allusion  to  this  could  be  appropriate,  so  ^^^^^/h  ^' 
lonsj  as  Jesus  stood  within  the  confines  of  the  ^X- ^  > '^^^^ 

°  vii.  39. 

Hebrew  dispensation — His  work  of  atonement 
unaccomplished,  and  the  Spirit  Who  should  in- 
augurate the  new  economy  not  yet  given.  But 
from  the  beginning  of  her  history,  the  instincts 
of  the  Christian  Church  must  have  supplied  that 
unexpressed  basis  on  which  all  acceptable  prayer 
now  takes  its  stand,  since  we  have  been  taught 
that  no  man  cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  the  John  xiv.  6. 
Son.  For  the  characteristic  christian  tone  of  this 
prayer,  therefore,  we  must  look  to  the  invocation 
alone.  What  neither  the  body  of  the  prayer  nor 
its  conclusion  does,  is  virtually  done  for  it  by  its 
opening  words.  It  was  Jesus  Christ  Who  re- 
vealed God  to  be  '  Our  Father  in  heaven ; '  and 
it  is  the  disciples  of  Jesus  Christ  who  are  entitled 
on  the  ground  of  regeneration  and  adoption  to 
address  Him  by  that  name.  For  though  in  some 
few  scattered  texts  of  the  Old  Testament  the 
peculiar  relation  of  the  Israelitish  people  to 
Jehovah  had  been  expressed  under  the  image  of 
paternity,^  yet  it  was  our  Lord  Who  first  adopted 

^  Deut.  xxxii.  6  is  the  seed-text  in  this  connection.    Compare 
Isa.  Ixiii.  16,  Ixiv.  8  ;  Jer.  iii.  4,  19,  xxxi.  9  ;  and  Malachi  i.  6. 


206 


The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 


PART  II.  tins  name  of  '  Father '  as  tlie  one  proper  name 
EXCURSUS.  Tinder  whicli  alone  He  Himself  knew  or  ever  spoke 
of  Him  from  Whom  He  had  come.  So  exclusive 
was  Jesus'  employment  of  the  word  as  His  own 
name  for  God,  that  it  could  not  but  awaken 
attention  when  He  habitually  encouraged  His 
followers  also,  and  none  but  His  folio w^ers,^  to 
think  of  the  Most  High  as  their  Father  too.  It 
was  only  by  receiving  Jesus  as  the  Son  of  God, 
by  believing  on  Him  as  the  image  of  the  Father, 
and  by  becoming  one  with  Him,  that  the  disciples 
of  Jesus  learned  to  address  the  Eternal,  as  they 
are  here  taught  to  do,  under  this  endearing  name. 
There  is  a  great  deal  more  of  loving  and  confiding 


Jehovah  called  Himself  a  Father  with  special  reference  to 
David,  in  the  promise  of  2  Sam.  vii.  14  (1  Chron.  xvii.  13),  to 
which  Ps.  Ixxxix.  26,  27  refers.  The  comparison  in  Ps.  ciii.  13 
bears  only  on  one  aspect  of  the  relationship,  and  can  hardly  be 
included  in  this  short  list,  which  comprises,  T  think,  all  the 
passages  of  this  class  in  the  Old  Testament.  The  use  of  the 
word  in  this  connection  became  more  frequent  and  explicit  after 
the  close  of  the  Hebrew  canon  :  cf.  Ecclus.  xxiii.  1  ;  Tobit  xiii. 
4  ;  Wisdom  xiv.  3  ;  and  especially  the  remarkable  passage  in 
the  latter  book  :  ii.  12-20.  In  our  Lord's  time,  it  was  the 
boast  of  the  nation  that  God  was  its  Father  ;  see  John  viii.  41. 
^  A  comparison  of  the  passages  in  the  Evangelists  (s.  Bruder, 
s.  V.  vccTtf)  in  which  our  Lord  spoke  of  God  as  *  your  Father  ' 
will  show  that,  without  one  exception,  He  was  addressing,  not 
a  mixed  audience,  but  His  own  disciples.  The  passages  are 
(besides  those  in  this  Sermon  on  the  Mount  and  its  parallels)  : 
Matt.  x.  20,  29,  xiii.  43,  xviii.  14,  xxiii.  9,  Mark  xi.  25, 
and  John  xx.  17. 


The  Model  Prayer.  207 

familiarity  in  such  a  form  of  address  than  we  part  ii. 
should  have  dared  of  ourselves,  either  as  creatures  excursus. 
or  as  criminals,  to  cherish.  It  is  the  Eternal  Son, 
Who,  having  brought  us  near  by  the  blood  of  His  Eph.  ii.  13. 
cross  and  begotten  us  again  by  His  Spirit,  leads 
us  by  the  hand  to  the  bosom  of  infinite  love,  and 
encourages  us,  not  as  though  we  were  exceptional 
favourites,  but  as  members  of  a  reconciled  family/ 
to  whisper  the  sweetest  of  names.  At  the  same 
time,  it  is  the  peculiarity  of  this  filial  affection 
that  it  joins  with  such  familiarity  tlie  lowliest 
and  most  submissive  reverence.  He  Who  has 
heTe  taught  us  to  lift  our  eyes  to  the  lofty  place 
where  our  Father  dwells  was  the  most  reverential 
of  men.  In  the"  blending  of  these  two  feelings 
which  this  invocation  suggests — of  the  love  which 
draws  boldly  near,  and  the  awe  which  restrains 
from  over-boldness — lies  the  just  temper  of  all 
christian  prayer.  Our  prayers  may  be  at  one  time 
more  intimate,  and  at  another  more  distant,  accord- 
ing as  the  heart  is  touched.  At  one  time,  the 
worshipper  may  feel  with  greater  force  that  he  is 
a  son,  and  at  another  that  his  Father  is  in  heaven. 
What  is  essential  is  that  intimacy  should  never 

^  This  seems  to  be  employed  in  the  plural  pronoun  '  Our. ' 
At  the  same  time,  this  was  customary  in  Jewish  forms  of  prayer 
even  when  designed  for  private  use. 


208  The  Lavjs  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.  degenerate  on  the  one  side  into  the  audacity  of 
EXCURSUS,  disrespect,  nor  awe  grow  on  the  other  to  faithless 
and  nnfilial  fear.  And  this  golden  mean  will 
always  be  observed,  so  long  as  the  spirit  of  all 
christian  prayer  shall  answer  the  model  invoca- 
tion :  '  Our  Father  Which  art  in  heaven.' 

2.  The  division  and  arrangement  of  the  peti- 
tions point  further  to  the  spirit  w^hich  ought  to 
rule  our  christian  desires.  Jesus  teaches  us  to 
pray  in  a  noble,  disinterested,  and  godly  way. 
Before  He  suffers  us  to  descend  to  those  requests 
which  touch  our  personal  wants,  even  the  most 
urgent,  He  lifts  our  hearts,  as  the  hearts  of  children 
ought  to  be  lifted,  into  sympathy  with  the  larger 
purposes  of  our  Father  in  heaven.  In  obedience  to 
His  own  rule  (to  be  laid  down  a  little  later). 
He  sets  us  out  of  ourselves  into  a  divine  unselfish- 
ness, and  bids  us  '  seek  first  the  kingdom  of  God 
and  His  righteousness  '  before  we  ask  any  of  those 
other  things  which  require  to  be  added  unto  us. 
The  first  place  in  our  desires,  like  the  first  table 
So  Calvin,  in  of  our  duty,  belongs  to  God.  That  the  world 
should  be  brought  to  recognise,  as  God's  children 
have  learned  to  do,  the  awful  sanctity  and  sepa- 
rate incommunicable  majesty  of  His  revealed 
character  as  Christ  has  declared  it  to  us,  so  as  to 
feel  its  own  sins  against  the  Holy  One  and  peni- 


The  Model  Prayer.  209 

tently  return  to  a  practical  acknowledgment  of  part  ii. 
God;  that  the  true  theocracy,  or  divine  rule  over  excursus. 
the  earth,  foretold  in  Hebrew  Scriptures,  should 
be  universally  set  up  by  the  exaltation  of  God's 
Anointed  Kincj  and  the  submission  of  all  men  to 
His  spiritual  control ;  and  that,  as  the  consum- 
mation of  this  saving  process,  rebellion  should  die 
out  of  the  earth,  and  every  human  will,  brought 
back  to  its  allecjiance,  should  move  once  more  in 
free  and  glad  obedience  to  that  supreme  Will 
which  sways  unfallen  and  celestial  spirits :  this 
threefold  desire  for  the  success  of  God's  work 
of  restoration,  in  its  beginning,  middle,  and  end,  is 
to  be  the  foremost  passion  of  every  child  of  God, 
as  it  is  the  Father's  own  abidiiicj  and  most  cher- 
ished  purpose.  So  distiDctly  did  Jesus  rebuke 
by  anticipation  that  subtle  selfishness  in  religion 
which  cares  for  itself  first,  and  only  in  the  second 
place  for  God's  honour  or  authority.  It  is  to  be 
remembered  indeed  that  this  is  a  prayer  for  men 
already  reconciled  to  God ;  and  therefore  it  can- 
not be  applied  Avithout  modification  to  the  case  of 
the  unregenerato,  whose  foremost  duty,  as  well  as 
most  urgent  interest,  it  must  always  be  to  repent 
and  call  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord  that  they  Acts  ix.  21  j 
may  be  saved.  So  far  as  they  are  concerned,  this  quotecffrom 
is  the  one  way  in  which  the  divine  Name  needs  "^^^^  "*  ^^' 
0 


210  TliG  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.  in  the  first  instance  to  be  hallowed  and  the  divine 
EXCURSUS.  Kingdom  to  come.  It  is  to  be  expected  that  a 
man  who  has  once  been  lifted  into  the  fellowship 
of  Christ  will  be  free  to  consider  wider  interests. 
To  pray  for  one's  own  individual  wants  as  if  there 
were  no  greater  or  more  clamant  need  beneath 
the  sun,  is  not  to  be  like  Jesus.  The  Christian 
who  looks  abroad  with  eyes  like  those  of  a  son  of 
God  will  see  one  tremendous  want  on  earth 
which  dwarfs  every  personal  consideration.  That 
everywhere  among  men  God's  name  is  profaned, 
God's  rule  defied,  God's  will  broken  ;  this  is  that 
sight  which  the  soul  of  God's  child  will  soonest 
cry  out  for  :  and  when  admitted  into  the  presence- 
chamber  to  lay  at  God's  feet  whatever  weighs 
most  heavily  on  his  heart, this  will  be  the  cry  which 
rises  soonest  to  his  lips,  that  the  dishonoured 
Father  be  once  more  revered,  the  Father's  dis- 
owned supremacy  restored,  and  the  Father's 
broken  orders  again  obeyed. 

3.  Another  point  in  which  this  model  prayer 
is  exemplary  is  in  the  place  it  assigns  to  tem- 
poral blessings.  Against  the  overdriven  spiritu- 
ality which  affects  to  be  too  indifferent  to  earthly 
good  to  think  it  worth  asking  for,  Jesus  vindicates 
a  place  for  it  in  our  prayers.-^     But  against  the 

1  To  this  overdriven  spirituality  we  must  set  it  down,  when 


The  Model  Prayer.  211 

worldliness  which  would  prostitute  prayer  into  a  part  iii 
mere  instrument  for  averting  material  disaster  or  excursus. 
securing  material  benefit,  Jesus  has  restricted  our 
desires  to  the  most  modest  necessaries.  It  is  not 
inconsistent  with  that  trustful  dependence  on  the 
spontaneous  bounty  of  Him,  Whose  open  hand 
feeds  the  birds  of  the  air,  of  which  Jesus  goes  See  Matt.  vi. 
on  by  and  bye  to  speak,  that  we  should  be  per- 
mitted to  solicit  what  is  needful  for  the  life  of 
to-day,  or  even  a  bare  provision  against  to-morrow.^ 
Eather,  it  is  the  most  natural  and  becoming 
expression  of  that  hand-to-mouth  dependence  (if 
I  may  so  express  it).  For  the  poor  man,  it  is 
good  that  he  is  encouraged  to  lay  even  this  mean 
but  gnawing  care  of  his  heart  before  the  great 
House -Father,  lest  he  sliould  be  tempted  to 
distrust  of  providence.  For  the  rich  man,  it  is 
no  less  good  that  he  should  be  reminded  of  the 
insecurity  of  earthly  abundance  and  made  a  beg- 
gar at  the  gate  of  God,  not  for  wealth,  but  for 
food.     But  there  is  no  encouragement  to  be  got 


Olsliaiisen  reads  even  this  petition  in  a  spiritual  sense.     See  his . 
Commentary  in  loc. 

^  There  is  much  to  be  said  for  the  derivation  of  that  difficult 
word  l^r/oyc/o?,  which  our  version  renders  'daily,'  from  hl-Tnovffa,,. 
In  that  case  we  should  read,  *  Give  us  to-day  our  bread  for 
to-morrow. '  The  rendering  *  daily  '  is  in  any  case  extremely 
doubtful. 


212  The  Lay:s  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.      from  these  words  for  the  habit  of  importuning  God 
EXCURSUS,     for   such    success,  prosperity,  or  immunity  from 
trial   as  God   has  not  promised,  and  may  send, 
if  He  send  it  at  all,  for  a  temptation  or  a  penalty. 
4.   The  last  lesson  of  this  prayer  which  I  shall 
mention  is  of  such  special  moment  and  so  hard 
to  learn,  that  our  Lord  Himself  has  called  atten- 
tion to  it,  by  what  may  be  termed  a  note  of  ex- 
planation appended  to  the  fifth  petition.      That 
the  divine  forgiveness  is  conditioned  by  a  for- 
giving temper  in  the  suppliant  was  not  a  new 
thought  to  the  hearers  of  this  Sermon ;  for  it  is 
Matt.  V.  7.       the  suljject  of  one  of  those  Beatitudes  with  which 
Cf.  Matt,  xviii.  the  Scrmoii  opened.     But  it  was  a  favourite  point 
25/26;  Luke    ill  our  Lord's  teaching  :  and  we  nowhere  find  it 
put  with  greater  emphasis  or  earnestness  than  in 
the  words  appended  to  this  prayer.      That  it  is 
even   embedded   in    the    texture    of    the    prayer 
itself;  that  where  brevity  was  so  much  studied 
as  here,  Jesus  could  not  teach  us  to  say,  '  Forgive 
ns  our  debts,'  without  bidding  us  add  in  the  same 
breath,  '  as  we  forgive  our  debtors  ; '  suggests  how 
absolute  is  this  condition  of  our  pardon  and  how 
essential  to  be  perpetually  kept  in  mind.      These 
words   take    for   granted    tliat   we   have   already 
Cf.  Matt.  V.      pardoned  all  offenders  against  ourselves  before  we 

23-25. 

pray,  and   are,  as  Jesus  had  already  taught  that 


Tlie  Model  Prayer.  213 

we  should  be,  in  peace  with  all  men.     If,  however,      part  h. 
any  one  should  presume  to  present  this  petition    ExcuRsua 
to  Almighty  God  with  a  resentful  or  implacable 
heart,  then  must  we  not  say  that  it  will  turn  in 
his  mouth  into  a  terrific  petition  against  forgive- 
ness ?      For  then  it  will  run  thus,  in  the  ear  of 
God :  Forgive  not  my  debts,  as  I  do  not  forgive 
my  debtors.      The  truth  is,  the  attitude  of  true 
prayer  is  ipso  facto  inconsistent  with  revenge  or 
unmercifulness ;  for  it  assumes  a  prior  repentance 
for  sin,  and  a  present  sympathy  with  the  mind  of 
*  the  Father  of  mercies,'  both   of  which  exclude  2  Cor.  i  3. 
the  diabolic  spirit  of  unforgiving  anger. 

To  open  up  at  length  the  comprehensive  sense 
of  each  of  these  six  petitions  would  require  a 
chapter  to  be  devoted  to  each.^  All  that  is  here 
demanded  of  us  by  the  connection  in  which  this 
model  form  occurs  as  an  appendix  to  tlie  present 
section  of  our  Lord's  discourse,  is  that  we  should 
try  to  gather  up  such  general  hints  as  it  was 
intended  to  afford  respecting  the  form,  the  matter, 
and  the  spirit  of  our  own  daily  prayers.  Much  as 
it  has  been  used  by  the  Church,  and  often  as  it 
recurs  in  the  family  and  social  worship  of  devout 

'  In  recent  literature,  this  has  been  thoughtfully  and  elegantly 
done  by  Mr.  Dods,  in  his  'Prayer  that  Teaches  to  Pray.* 
(Edin.  1863.) 


214  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PAKT  II.  persons,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  its  lessons 
iixcuKsus.  as  a  teaching  specimen  or  condensed  directory 
for  supplication  have  ever  been  sufficiently  ap- 
preciated. It  was  the  manner  of  Jesus  to  instruct 
by  example ;  and  by  this  type-form  He  certainly 
sought  to  impress  upon  the  mind  of  His  subjects 
in  all  subsequent  ages  that  they  should  address 
themselves  to  prayer  as  a  real,  and,  though  rever- 
ential, yet  most  confiding,  converse  with  God  as 
their  holy  and  gracious  Father  ;  that  their  words 
to  Him  should  be  few,  well  ordered,  and  child- 
like;  that,  while  they  might  humbly  represent 
their  immediate  and  most  pressing  earthly  wants, 
what  it  chiefly  became  them  to  beg  at  His  hand 
was  deliverance  from  His  displeasure  and  from  sin ; 
but  that,  before  all  personal  mercies,  it  was  their 
priest-like  privilege  as  God's  children  to  enter 
with  sympathy  into  His  own  large  thoughts  of 
love  for  all  mankind,  and  to  seek  what  He  seeks, 
the  manifestation  of  His  glory  by  the  reduction 
of  the  world  into  obedience  to  His  perfect  will. 
Tor  no  other  exercise  of  worship,  except  the 
sacraments,  did  the  Son  of  God  think  it  worth 
while  to  prescribe  a  model.  But  He  Who 
found  in  prayer  the  means  of  keeping  up  in  His 
strange  human  exile  and  at  the  distance  of  our 
earth  that  most  intimate  and  tender  intercourse 


The  Model  Prayer.  215 

which  He  had  with  His  eternal  Father  before  love      part  n. 
drew  Him  into  flesh,  stooped  patiently  to  teach    excursus. 
us  how  by  prayer  we  too,  '  who  sometime  were  Eph.  ii.  13. 
far  off '  and  shut  out  from  God,  might  reopen  com- 
munications with  the  Unseen,  and  become  active 
members  of  that  spiritual  family  whose  Head  is 
glad  to   hearken  when  His  children  speak  and 
prompt  to  answer  when  they  ask.     This  Elder 
Brother  never  looked  more  touchinsj  in  His  low- 
liness  than  when  He  dictated  in  brief  and  easy 
words    the    prayers    of   us    sinful    men    to    our 
Father  Who  is  in  heaven.      Such  prayers  are  as 
far  removed  from  the  folly  of  superstition  as  from 
the  falsehood  of  hypocrisy. 


THIED    APPLICATION 


TO     FASTING. 


217 


Moreover,  when  ye  fast,  he  not,  as  the  hypocrites,  of  a  sad 
countenance :  for  they  disfigure  their  faces  that  they  may 
appear  unto  men  to  fast.  Verily,  I  say  unto  you.  They  have 
their  reward.  But  thou,  when  thou  fastest,  anoint  thine 
head  and  wash  thy  face;  that  thou  appear  not  unto  men  to 
fast,  hut  unto  thy  Father  Which  is  in  secret:  and  thy  Father 
Which  seeth  in  secret  shall  reward  thee  openly. — Matt.  vi. 
16-18. 


219 


THIRD  APPLICATION:  TO  FASTING. 

ABSTINENCE  for  a  time,  either  from  all  food     part  n. 
or  from  a  free  indulgence  in  it,  or  from  the       third 

1  1.  ■[    •     J         r   '4.     ■  '  p-i?   APPLICATION. 

more  pleasant  kinds  of  it,  is  an  expression  of  grief 
so  very  natural  as  in  some  instances  to  become 
involuntary.     The  man  whose  whole  life  is  taken 
possession  of  by  a  recent   and  severe   calamity 
cannot  eat  as  at  other  times,  even  if  he  would. 
No  real  mourner  will  be  nice  in  his   choice  of 
viands,  although  he  may  consent  to  still  the  crav- 
ings of  hunger.     Abstinence,  therefore,  partial  or 
total,  becomes  part  of  that  natural  language  by 
which  men  have  always   striven   to   express  in 
their  behaviour  the  grief  of  their  heart.      It  may 
be  grief  accompanied  by  indignation,  like  Jona-  l  Sam.  xx.  34. 
than's   at  the  furious  envy  of  his  father  against 
his     friend    David ;     or    grief    accompanied    by 
anxiety,  such  as  David's  own  when  his  infant's  2  Sam.  xii.  16. 
life  hung  in  the  balance  ;  or  the  grief  of  prolonged 
disappointment,  as  when   Hannah  mourned   her  i  Sam.  i.  7. 
want  of  children ;  or  the  grief  of  vexation  and 
alarm  which  consumed  Darius  during  the  sleep-  Dan.  vi.  18. 
219 


220  TJie  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.      less  night  when  his  first  officer  of  state  lay  in  a 

THIRD       den  of  lions  :  for  abstinence  is  natural  under  any 

' '  of  those  emotions  which  are  at  once  overmastering 

and  depressing.      Or  the  fast  may  be  adopted  in 

that  species  of  social  mourning,  as  for  a  public 

disaster  or  a  private  bereavement,  which   seeks 

expression  in   ways   more    or  less   conventional. 

The  troops  of  the  ten  tribes  fasted  after  their  de- 

Judg.  XX.  26.    feat  in  the  old  civil  war  against  Benjamin  ;  the 

1  Sam.  xxxi.     population  of  Jabesh  fasted  for  a  week  after  the 

i  12,  ik  :i5.   *  fatal  fight  in  which  the  king  fell  at  Gilboa. 

From  instances  like  these,  one  passes  naturally 
to  fasting  as  an  accompaniment  of  religious 
exercises.  Men  accustomed  to  express  other 
kinds  of  grief  by  abstinence  from  their  wonted 
meals  will  naturally  adopt  the  same  expression 
for  devout  sorrow  on  account  of  sin.  In  this 
way  fasting  has  passed  into  the  religious  usages 
of  worshippers  in  many  lands  and  under  various 
faiths.  For  sanitary  reasons,  dependent  chiefly 
on  climate  and  customary  diet,  it  has  been  most 
prevalent  among  orientals.  Eare  in  ancient 
Greece,  it  was  frequent  among  the  Egyptians  and 
Persians,  as  it  is  to  this  day  throughout  Moham- 
medan countries.^  It  could  hardly  fail  to  find  a 
place    in    the    religious    rites    of   the    Palestine 

*  Cf.  Winer,  Realworterhuch,  sub  voce. 


Fasting.  221 

Hebrews,  even  if  it  had  been  entirely  passed  over  part  n. 
in  their  divine  statute-book.  It  was  not  entirely  third 
passed  over ;  but  it  seems  to  suggest  how  pre- 
vailingly cheerful,  almost  idyllic,  was  the  tone  of 
national  worship  during  the  earliest  age  of  Juda- 
ism, that,  while  Moses  was  directed  to  enjoin 
several  feasts,  he  enjoined  no  more  than  one  fast  Lev.  xvi.  29- 

1  ^^»  xxiii.  27- 

m  tlie  sacred  year.      The   great  day  of  annual  32 ;  Num. 
expiation  or  atonement  was  the  solitary  occasion  ed  to,  Acts 
which  called  on  the  whole  people  to  '  afflict  (or 
humble)  their  souls,'  as  the  law  plirased  it,^  by 
public  fasting ;  of  any  private  or  individual  acts 
of  abstinence,  save  in  one  incidental  allusion,  the  Num.  xxx.  u. 
law  had  not  a  word  to  say.      With  all  its  rude- 
ness, the  first  age  of  Israel's  national  existence 
was  a  glad  age  ;  ^  the  memory  of  the  Exodus  and 
of    the   Conquest  was  still  a  spring  of   healthy 
exultation    to    the    pious    and    patriotic.       And 
though,  under  the  troublous  times  of  the  later 
monarchy,  we  find  on  some  few  occasions  a  special 
public  fast  proclaimed  by  the  authorities,  as  before 
the  great  war  in  Jehoshaphat's  reign ;  yet  these  2  Chron.  xx.  3. 

^  This  expression,  which  is  used  in  the  texts  cited  on  the 
margin  in  the  sense  of  'fasting,'  serves  to  explain  the  fuller 
phraseology  of  later  passages,  such  as  Isa.  Iviii.  5,  E^ra  viii. 
21  (cf.  ix.  5),  and  Ps.  xxxv.  13. 

'^  Of  its  '  rudeness '  the  Book  of  Judges  is  evidence  enough  ; 
of  its  idyllic  gladness  in  spite  of  trouble,  the  Book  of  Ruth. 


222  Tlie  Laivs  of  the  Kingdom. 

PAET  II.      occasions  even  are  rare/  and  there  is  no  evidence 
THIRD       tliat  any  other  recurring  fast,  annual  or  weekly, 

APPLICATION.  ^  ^     _  ,  -,.-,,        T,  ;r  .-.      , 

was  added  to  the  one  ordained  by  Moses,  until  the 
long  captivity  had  come  to  embitter  at  last  the 
spirit  of  the  nation  and  to  break  its  heart.  Then 
indeed  fasts,  both  public  and  private,  both  occa- 
sional and  stated,  became  only  too  common.  The 
pan.  Lx.  3,  x.    captives  themselves,  like  Daniel  at  Babylon  and 

.3;  Esther  IV.  ^  '  ^ 

3, 16;  Ezra      Esther  in  Persia,  the  OTeat  leaders  of  the  return, 

viii.  21-23,  ix.      .  >  o  ' 

5,  X.  0 ;  Neh.    like  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  were  all  of  necessity 

i.  4,  ix.  1. 

mourners  for  the  national  sins  which  had  brouc^ht 

o 

down  the  visitation  of  Jehovah ;  and  they  all 
joined  fasting  with  those  confessions,  tears,  and 
prayers,  by  which  they  sought  to  entreat  the  re- 
turning favour  of  their  country's  alienated  God. 
From  one  of  the  prophets  of  the  restoration  we 

Zech.  viii.  19,   learn  that  four  new  annual  fast-days  had  been 
c.  vii.  1  ff.         ,       .  -^ 

instituted  to  commemorate  the  sad  events  of  the 

captivity ;  one  of  which  it  was  proposed  to  abolish 

after  the  long  desolate  temple  had  been  at  length 

^  There  is  one  instance  as  early  as  Samuel,  on  occasion  of  one 
of  the  numerous  reforms  from  idolatry  (1  Sam.  vii.  6)  ;  but 
except  two  allusions  of  doubtful  date  in  the  prophets  (for  a 
famine,  in  Joel  i,  14,  ii.  15  ;  and  that  in  Tsa.  Iviii.  3  ff.)  no  other 
genuine  case  occurs  till  the  fifth  year  of  Jehoiakim  (Jer.  xxxvi. 
6-10),  when  the  realm  had  already  been  made  tributary  to 
Babylon.  For  the  fast  under  cover  of  w^hich  Queen  Jezebel 
compassed  the  murder  of  Naboth  cannot  be  reckoned  as  a  gen- 
uine exercise  of  worship  (see  1  Kings  xxi.  9-12). 


Fasting.  223 

rebuilt.  To  these  were  probably  added,  not  long  part  n. 
after,  the  two  weekly  fasts,  on  the  observance  of  third 
which  self-riohteous  Pharisees  of  our  Lord's  day  ^  i       ...  -.o' 

o  ^   Luke  xvxu.  12. 

laid  stress :  the  fasts,  that  is  to  say,  of  the  second 
and  fifth  days  in  each  week,  for  which  the  Chris- 
tian  Church   at   an    early   date   substituted   the  See  Grotius  on 

Luke  L  c. 

fourth  and  sixth  days.  Nor  did  even  this  fre- 
quency of  stated  fasts  supersede  either  the  Cf.  Josephus, 
occasional  appointment  of  others  by  authority  or 
the  practice  of  private  fasting  on  personal  grounds. 
It  should  be  observed,  however,  that  the  exercise 
did  not  always  involve  entire  abstinence  from  cf.  Dan.  x.  3. 
food.^  When  it  did  so,  the  time  of  abstinence 
was  not  protracted    beyond    one  day,  reckoned  Joseph.  Antt. 

^  "^  *^  iii.  10.  3. 

from  sunset  to  sunset,  and  was  therefore  at  once 

followed  by  the  accustomed   evening   meal.      A 

strict  abstinence  of  this  duration,  which  really 

amounted  in  many  cases  to  the  omission  only  of 

a  single  meal,  was  not,  in  a  warm  climate  and 

among  a  rather  inactive  people,  at  all  injurious  to 

health.      Where  the  fast  consisted  only  in  a  pro- 

lono-ed  disuse  of  wine  and  flesh,  the  exercise  was  Cf.  Dan.  i.  3- 

""  16. 

probably  to  be  recommended  for  dietetic  reasons. 

^  The  Roman  Catholic  Church  has  adopted  a  similar  division 
of  fasts  into  {\)  jejunium,  which  means  entire  abstinence  from 
one  evening  to  the  next ;  and  (2)  ahstlnentia,  which  only  means 
the  absence  of  tlesh-meat  from  the  diet.  See  Herzog,  EncyJclo- 
pddie,  sub  voce. 


224  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  ir.  When  fasting   assumes   a   religious   character, 

THIRD       such  as  we  have  thus  seen  to  belong  to  it  through- 

APPLICATION. 

out  Hebrew  history,  it  may  be  said  to  aim  at  two 
distinct  and  separable  results.  Its  first  value  is 
simply  that  of  a  natural  expression  for  sorrow. 
It  allies  itself  with  the  squalid  visage,  the  un- 
washed person,  the  coarse  sackcloth  or  rent  robe, 
the  dust  thrown  over  the  head,  the  beating  of  the 
breast,  and  other  demonstrations  of  violent  afflic- 
tion usual  among  orientals.  ^  Transferred  to 
exercises  of  religious  penitence,  it  is  designed  to 
give  utterance  to  the  deep  depression  of  the  heart 
on  account  of  sin.  Of  course,  its  value  as  a 
symbol  of  religious  mourning  must  depend,  first, 
on  the  genuineness  of  the  mourning  to  be  ex- 
pressed ;  and  next,  on  the  fitness  of  this  particular 
symbol  to  express  it.  Eeligious  life,  like  all 
human  life,  has  its  alternations  of  depression  and 
of  joy;  and  to  be  thoroughly  natural,  it  must  find 
for  both  becoming  forms  of  expression.  But  the 
law  of  truth  is  obviously  transgressed  when  in 
obedience  to  custom  or  prescription  the  forms  of 
religious  grief  are  observed  by  men  whose  real 
feelings  at  the  moment  are  bright  and  cheerful 

^  See  a  good  summary  of  these,  as  practised  by  the  Hebrews 
and  other  allied  races,  in  the  Art.  'Mourning,'  in  Smith's  Diet, 
of  the  Bible. 


Fasting.  225 

This  is  the  principle  of  our  Lord's  reply  to  the      part  u. 
question  respecting  fasts  put  to  Him  by  the  fol-       third 

,  ^-ri  ^       -t-.  •  T  11  P-1     APPLICATION. 

lowers  of  John  the   Baptist,      it  could  not  fai^^^^^  ^^  ^^ 
to  strike  the  contemporaries  of  Jesus  that  the  jgJoQ^.^j^  jj; 
religious  temper  of  His  disciples   was  precisely  ^-  33-35. 
the  reverse  of  that  which  characterized  all  the 
other  eminent  schools  of  piety  embraced  wdthin 
the  faith  of  Israel.     The  Pharisees,  who  inherited 
in  exaggerated  form  the  traditions  of  the  age  that 
succeeded  the  exile ;  the  Essenes,  whose  rule  was 
still  stricter  and  more  ascetic ;  and  the  scholars 
of  the  great  Baptizer,  whose  mission  it  had  been, 
to   call  his  countrymen  to  a  preparatory  repent- 
ance :   all  these  signalized  their  exceptional  piety 
by   exceptional   austerities.       Eeligion   was   with, 
them  a  thing  of  gloom,  of  self-mortification,  andi 
of  abstinence.      In  singular  contrast  stood  Jesus 
and    His    scholars.       They    neither    fasted     nor 
shunned  society,  but  mixed  freely  in  social  life- 
and   cultivated   a  cheerful  affability  of  manner.. 
The   justification    of    this    change    Jesus    found 
simply  in  its  reason  :  they  feasted  because  they 
were    glad ;    to    fast   w^as    impossil^le   for   them,  cf.  Matt,  and 
because  as  yet  they  were  not  sad.     To  use  John's    *^  ' 
own  figure,  they  were   chosen  comrades  of  Him 
Who  is  the  heavenly  Bridegroom  of  all  pure  and  See  John  iii. 

29 

loving  hearts,  and  Whose  coming  made  a  bright 


226  TJie  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.      wedding-day  in  the  spiritual  life  of   every  one 

THIRD       who  received  Him.      You  cannot  make  men  fast 

(^f  L  k    /      ^^^  sorrow,  when  God  is  satisfying  them  with  the 

new  wine  of    His  kingdom  as  with  the  joy  of 

niarriao-e.^     But  these  first  followers  were  not  to 

o 

stand  always  on  the  hill-top  of  joy.  On  fruition 
and  the  filling  up  of  a  long-deferred  hope  there 
were  to  follow  loss  and  the  pain  of  absence. 
The  death  of  Jesus  (thus  early  foreseen  by  Him- 
self) came  to  make  all  their  world  dark  again  and 
emptier  than  before ;  and  then,  for  at  least  the 

John  xiv.  IS,  brief  '  day  '  which  found  them  '  orphans,'  there 
were  none  in  Israel  so  ready  to  fast  as  they, 
over  Him  Who  had  been  snatched  from  their 
eyes.     These  things  are  a  picture  of  all  christian 

John  xiv.  iG.  life  :  for,  though  the  coming  of  the  Second  Com- 
forter lias  given  to  the  experience  of  Christians 
under  the  New  Testament  a  more  prevailing 
accent  of  cheerfulness  than  was  ever  possible 
before,  and  made  it  each  believer's  duty,  in  St. 

1  Thess.  V.  16 ;  Paul's  words,  to  '  rejoJcc  evermore  ;'   yet  such  joy 

of.  Phil.  iv.  4. 

must  still  depend  on  the  presence  of  '  the  Bride- 
groom '  realized  by  faith,  and  may  still  be  for- 
feited, when,  through  unbelief  or  disloyalty,  the 

^  It  was  surely  to  symbolize  this  rew  feature  in  His  kingdom 
that  our  Lord  led  His  earliest  converts  to  Caua,  and  there  first 
'manifested  forth  His  glory.' — John  ii.  l-H. 


Fasting.  227 

soul   has   to  mourn  a  temporary  withdrawal  or      part  n. 
eclipse   of    His    gracious    face.      Dark    hours   in       third 

1-1  ^  1  p    •    1    p    1  APPLICATION.- 

which  remembered  failure  and  unraithiulness  and 

the  breach  of  holy  purposes  crowd  in  to  obscure 

one's  spirit,  and  if  they  do  not  alarm  with  fear 

of    apostasy,   at   least   succeed    in    shutting   out 

everything  but  that  '  hope  '  which  clings  like  a 

'  sure  and   stedfast   anchor '    to    the   Forerunner,  Heb.  vi.  I8-20. 

Whose  very  absence  means  that  He  has  entered 

for  us  behind  the  veil ;  these  are  the  hours  when 

you  cannot  force  christian  men  to  be  glad,  but 

must  suffer  them  to  indulge  in  an  inward  fast. 

Whether  in  any  case  this  inward   fast  of  a 
mournful  heart  is  to  be  reflected  in  outward  absti-  ■ 

nence  from  pleasant  food  will  depend  on  health, 
personal  habits,  and  local  usage.  A  change  of 
diet  which  is  safe  for  people  leading  an  outdoor 
life  in  a  warm  climate,  may  be  very  hurtful  to 
the  over-strained  and  seldom  over-fed  population 
of  our  cities.  Again,  it  suits  the  emotional  East 
to  tear  the  robe  and  beat  the  breast  for  sorrow  ;  it 
does  not  suit  the  self-restrained  Englishman.  So 
the  bread  of  sorrow,  eaten  with  tears,  may  be,  like 
a  sad-coloured  dress,  a  natural  enough  accompani- 
ment of  penitence  among  a  people  who  love  to  do 
everything  in  public  and  to  mirror  every  mood 
of  mind  in  fitting  external  symbol ;  it  may  be 


228  Tlu  Laivs  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.      most  unnatural  to  us.      We  have  retained  indeed 
THIRD       the  disuse  of  colour  in  our  dress  as  an  expression 

APPLICATION.       „  .  ,       ^  1        -^  1        ^ 

01  mourning ;  but  we  apply  it  only  to  mourning 
for  the  dead ;  and  in  almost  everything  else  we 
have  abandoned  the  attempt  to  speak  our  emotions 
to  the  public  eye  by  either  badge  or  gesture  or 
deportment.  Even  the  language  of  facial  expres- 
sion in  which  nature  teaches  childhood  to  betray 
its  feelings,  we  tutor  ourselves  to  suppress  or  to 
disguise.  While  therefore  it  may  be  a  natural, 
and,  to  some  races,  a  seemly  token  of  inward  grief, 
the  fast  is  certainly  as  much  out  of  place  among 
ourselves,  and  as  foreign  to  our  national  tastes,  as 
it  would  be  to  shave  our  heads  or  sit  for  a  week 
in  silence  on  the  ground. 

To  say  this,  however,  is  not  to  exhaust  the  re- 
lifijious  sif^nificance  of  fastins;.  If  it  bcGjan  to  be 
numbered  among  tlie  adjuncts  of  devotion  for 
the  sake  of  its  expressiveness,  it  soon  came  to  be 
employed  for  the  sake  of  its  effects.  It  is  first  a 
sign  of  grief :  it  is  also  a  discipline  of  the  soul. 
To  impose  at  certain  times  a  stricter  limit  upon 
the  indulgence  of  appetite  than  temperance  im- 
poses at  all  times,  with  a  view  either  to  chasten 
those  desires  which  have  their  seat  in  the  body 
or   to  leave  the  spiritual  nature  more   free  for 


Fasting.  229 

prolonged  and  absorbed  worshi^^,  has  always  been      part  n. 
recomised    as    lecritimate,    and    employed    as    a       third 

.  ,  .  -  .        ,    APPLICATION. 

wholesome  discipline  by  those  who  iiave  aspired 
to  a  life  of  purity  and  devotion.  It  has  been 
practised  with  this  design  by  worshippers  nnder 
nearly  every  creed  and  in  almost  every  age  of  the 
world.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  true  and  useful  measure 
of  self-denial,  of  which  asceticism  has  been  the 
wide-spread  abuse.^  Every  man  who  desires  to 
use  his  body  as  an  instrument  in  the  service  of 
God  will  strive  to  respect  under  all  circumstances 
those  rules  of  moderation  in  the  gratification  of 
his  appetites  which  are  prescribed  by  health,  by 
purity,  by  sobriety,  and  by  the  subordination  of 
the  animal  in  man  to  the  control  of  reason  and 
of  conscience.  Within  these  rules,  however,  there 
is  permissible  a  certain  latitude  of  ordinary  in- 
dulgence in  the  lower  pleasures  of  the  body,  wiiich 
very  well  consorts  with  the  cheerful  and  thankful 


1  Does  not  asceticism  begin  only  at  that  point  where  the 
refusal  of  any  bodily  gratification  or  the  self-infliction  of  bodily 
suffering  is  believed  to  possess  a  necessary  spiritual  valve  of  its 
own,  apart  from  properly  spiritual  conditions  ;  whether  that 
value  be  supposed  to  lie  in  meriting  divine  commendation  or  in 
effecting  moral  reformation  ?  Popularly  indeed  the  word  is 
commonly  applied  also  to  cases  in  which  an  exaggerated  value 
is  ascribed  to  self-denial  as  a  means  to  spiritual  or  moral  results, 
even  though  no  proper  or  inherent  virtue  is  believed  to  belong 
to  it. 


230  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PART  II.      spirit,  habitual  to  tlie  Christian.      He  Who  came 

THIRD        '  eating  and  drinking/  has  taught  His  followers  to 

.  ,^'    bold  every  creature  of  God  for  gjood,  '  if  it  be  re- 
Matt.  XI.  19,  -^  _  G       ^ 

and  parallels,    ccivcd  with  thanksgiving,'  and  to   use,  without 
1  Cor."  vii.  31 ;'  abusing,  our  Fatlier's  gifts  with  a  freedom  which 
could  not  be  safely  granted  to  man  till  men  had 
become   sons  of  God.      This  freedom  no   Chris- 
tian is  at  liberty  to  surrender  to  the  judgment  of 
Cf.  Rom.  xiv.   any  '  weaker  brother '   or  at  the  bidding  of  any 
mpva.      '       ecclesiastical  authority.      But  there  do  come  sea- 
sons in  the  inward  life  of  the  soul,  known  only 
to  each  devout  person  and  to  be  judged  of  by  him- 
self alone,  when  the  higher  wants  of  the  divine 
life  will  be  best  served  by  a  voluntary  abdication 
of  this  liberty  and  a  self-imposed  abstinence  from 
permitted  pleasures.      It  may  be  that  some  secret 
lust,  fed  by  a  full  habit  of  body  or  taking  advan- 
tage of  the  too  easy  humours  bred  by  self-indul- 
gence, needs  to  be  weakened,  mortified,   and  by 
a  wdiolesome  severity  tamed  into  sul^jection ;  and 
Cf.  1  Cor.  ix.    the  christian  athlete  may  do  wisely  to  forestall 
30-32.'   '    "     the    sharper    discipline    of    divine    affliction    by 
'keeping  under'   his  own  body.      Eminently  this 
is  a  case  in  which,  to  use  Bishop  Jeremy  Taylor's 
Holy  Living,    words,  '  a  man  may  abate  of  his  ordinary  liberty 
also  §  7.'    "      and  bold  freedom  with  great  prudence,  so  he  does 
it  without  singularity  in  himself,  or  trouble  to 


Fasting.  231 

others.'      It   may   be,   on    the    other    hand,  that      part  u. 
instead  of  beinc^  in  danger  of  falling  below  the       third 

\.  r^-,      ..  •  ■  APPLICATION. 

normal  purity  of  a  Christian,  the  samt  is  sum- 
moned by  God's  dealings  with  him  to  a  certain 
unwonted  elevation  of  spiritual  experience.  All 
healthy  relicjion  is  liable  to  its  Peniels,  like  Jacob  ;  Gen.  xxxii. 

•^  ^  .  24-30. 

to  its  crises  of  spiritual  struggle  :  and  the  highest 
lives  have  sometimes  been  called  to  go  up,  like 
Moses,  to  some  Sinai-summit,  or  driven,  like  Elijah,  Ex.  xxiv.  18; 

1  Kings  xix.  8  ; 

unto  Horeb,  or  even  led  in  tlie  footsteps  of  a  Matt.  iv.  i,  2. 
Greater  still  into  a  wilderness  of  temptation. 
When  the  human  spirit  would  brace  itself  for 
such  extraordinary  seasons  of  divine  communion, 
would  draw  into  itseli'  the  highest  measure  of 
divine  strength  for  exceptional  efforts,  or  would 
pass  through  inward  victory  to  a  serener  and 
heavenlier  life  than  it  has  been  wont  to  lead ;  all 
experience  teaches  that  the  intrusive  calls  and 
grosser  motions  of  the  flesh  must  be  for  the  time 
denied,  and  to  fast  becomes  the  natural  preparative 
and  the  concomitant  of  prayer.  Our  Lord's  forty 
days'  seclusion  after  baptism,  prefigured  in  the 
history  of  Moses  and  Elijah,  is  at  once  the  type- 
example  and  the  supreme  justification  of  all  lesser 
instances. 

The  service  which   occasional   abstinence    by 
persons  in   full   health   may  thus   render   as  '  a 


232 


The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 


pAKT  II.  nourisliment  of  prayer,  a  restraint  of  lust,  and  an 
instrument  of  humility/  probably  lies  at  the 
bottom  of  that  Pentateuch  expression  for  fasting 
which  reappears  in  later  Hebrew — I  mean  the 
'  afflicting  of  the  soul.'  The  soul  is  '  afflicted,' 
humbled  ^  or  brought  down,  when  the  body  is 
made  feeble  by  a  low  diet ;  and  though  this  may 
refer  only  to  the  expression  of  religious  grief,  it 
seems  more  natural  to  see  in  such  a  phrase  a 
recognition  of  the  effects  of  abstinence,  as  a 
discipline,  upon  the  spiritual  life.  No  doubt  such 
physical  aid  to  self-culture  and  especially  to  self- 
humbling  must  always  be  used  with  much  care- 
fulness and  under  the  most  judicious  safeguards. 
No  doubt  it  may  very  easily  become  a  minister 
to  superstition,  be  pushed  the  length  of  asceticism, 
or  generate  the  spiritual  '  pride  which  apes 
humility.'  At  the  same  time,  it  can  ncA^er  be 
urged  as  a  '  reproaclj  '  against  any  devout  and 
humble  worshipper  that  in  his  longing  after 
purity  and  divine  fellowship  he   adopts  such  a 

^  The  Septuagint  equivalent  is  Ta'^nvoZv  i-h  -^vx'^.v ;  whence 
'humbled  my  soul'  in  Ps.  xxxv.  13. 

2  The  three  psalms  in  which  reference  is  made  to  fasting 
(xxxv.  13,  Ixix.  10,  and  cix.  24)  are  all  ascribed  to  David, 
with  more  or  less  probability.  In  Psalm  Ixix.  the  fasting  is 
evidently  part  of  the  psalmist's  humiliation  for  dishonour  done 
to  God.  In  Psalm  cix.  it  is  not  clear  that  religious  fasting  is 
meant ;  but  the  physical  feebleness  produced  by  it  is  described. 


Fasting.  233 

subordinate    assistance,    except   by  the    profane.      i'art  n. 
Our  Lord  Himself  gave  His  express  sanction  to       third 

,    .  .  .  f>     ,.      ,  •  -1  1  APPLICATION. 

this  conjunction  oi  lasting  with  prayer  whenever 
the  faith  which  works  miracles  is  required  to  be 
exalted  into  extraordinary  potency.      '  This  kind/  Matt.  xvii.  21; 

cf .  ]\Iark  ix. 

He  said,  by  way  of  explaining  why  His  apostles  29,  %yhere  the 
had  failed  in  their  effort  to  exorcise  the  demon  vers,  however, 
from  an  epileptic  and  lunatic  boy — '  This  kind 
goeth  not  out  but  by  prayer  and  fasting.'  What- 
ever else  these  remarkable  words  may  carry,  they 
certainly  assume  that  abstinence  from  food  during 
seasons  of  prayer  is  among  the  legitimate  means 
by  which  in  certain  cases  the  religious  faith  of 
the  soul  may  be  brought  into  its  highest  and  most 
powerful  activity.  It  was  thus  the  apostles  were 
taught  by  the  Spirit  to  understand  their  Master. 
Both  by  example  and  express  permission,  they 
gave  fasting  a  place  among  the  rarer  exercises  of 
christian  life.  When  the  primitive  Church  was 
called  to  acts  of  special  solemnity  and  moment, 
such  as  the  selection  of  missionaries  or  the  ordi-  See  Acts  xin. 

p  ,      .  .,  ,  .  ,.  3,  xiv.  23. 

nation  oi  presbyters, it  engaged  m  an  extraordinary 
service  of  worship,  accompanied  with  fasting. 
Similar   seasons    of  exceptional   devotion,   under  i  Cor.  vii.  5. 

.  .  .  But  the  textus 

abstinence  from  the  gratification  of  the  appetites,  reccptus  is  here 
are  recognised  by  St.  Paul  as  equally  permissible 
to  the  private  believer. 


234  The  Laws  of  the  Kingdom, 

PART  II.  The  evidence  of  the  New  Testament,  however, 

and,  on  the  whole,  that  of  the  Old  also,  is  rather 
unfavourable  to  the  imposition  of  stated,  obliga- 
tory, and  general  fasts.  The  formal  recurrence 
of  fast-days  in  every  week,  the  annual  observance 
of  Lent,  and  the  custom  of  fastincj  before  receivincp 
the  Lord's  Supper  (of  which  the  first  two  at  least 
grew  up  within  the  Church  of  the  first  three  cen- 
turies, and  even  passed  at  the  Eeformation  into 
Protestant  w^orship),  appear  somewhat  inconsis- 
tent both  with  the  joyous  tone  of  the  christian 
economy  and  with  the  rare,  casual,  and  optional 
character  which  properly  belongs  to  this  exercise. 
For  I  believe  the  impression  which  is  made  by 
the  whole  teaching  of  Scripture  on  this  subject  is 
that  (apart  from  the  oriental  use  of  a  spare  diet 
as  one  of  the  natural  signs  of  grief)  religious 
fasting  is  mainly  a  personal  discipline,  to  be 
employed  at  the  discretion  of  the  individual  just 
in  so  far  as  he  may  find  it  to  be  a  help  to  his 
devotions  under  exceptional  circumstances,  and 
especially  at  any  unusually  solemn  crisis  in  his 
religious  history.  There  certainly  does  not 
appear  to  be  any  sufficient  reason  for  the  recent 
decline  and  disuse  of  this  ancient  discipline 
among  all  classes,  and,  so  far  as  I  am  aware, 
throughout   the    whole   of    the    Protestant   com- 


Fasting.  2  :-3  5 

munions.  Modern  Christianity  has  become  pre- 
dominantly active,  aggressive,  and  beneficent. 
Religious  people  now-a-days  live  upon  the  out- 
goings of  their  faith  in  works  of  charity.  The 
cultivation  of  purely  devotional  piety  has  corre- 
spondingly declined  ;  and  fasting,  as  a  discipline  of 
devotion,  has  gone  out  of  use,  along  with  questions 
for  self-examination,  cases  of  casuistry,  rules  of 
life,  and  other  aids  or  guides  to  a  scrupulous  and 
contemplative  piety.  Tlie  change  is  partly  an 
improvement ;  but  surely  not  wholly  so.  It  is 
never  a  safe  thing  to  over-cultivate  one  side  of 
religion;  and  wc  are  in  danger  of  losing  depth, 
reverence,  tenderness,  and  humility,  through  our 
one-sided  activity  in  doing,  rather  than  in  being, 
good.  A  better  balance  in  the  development  of 
christian  life  would  find  room  for  self-discipline, 
penitential  fasting,  and  protracted  seasons  of  pri- 
vate communion  with  God,  alongside  of  those 
practical  engagements  which  are  at  present  so 
multifarious  and  absorbing ;  and  christian  life 
would  be  all  the  stronger  as  well  as  more  sym- 
metrical for  the  combination. 

What  is  abundantly  clear  from  the  very  nature 
of  a  fast  is  that  it  is  not  a  thing  to  be  paraded 
before  one's  neighbours.   It  is  entirely  a  subsidiary 


236  TJie  Laws  of  the  Kingdom. 

PAKT  II.      aid  to  spiritual  exercises,  of  no  value  in  itself.    It 

THIRD       finds  its  justification  usually  in  something  quite 

■  personal  to  tlie  individual,  with  which  no  one  else 

need  have  anything  to  do.     It  is  too  exceptional 

to  form  part  of  men's  stated  acts  of  worship  ;  nor 

can  its  observance  by  one  person  be  any  rule  for 

another.       No  doubt   a  liypocrite   will  find   the 

temptation  to  make  capital  out  of  his  fast-days  a 

strong  one,  just  because  to  keep  fasts  is  supposed 

to  be  a  mark  of  unusual  seriousness  and  depth 

of  piety.      Still  most  men  will  feel  that  there  is 

a  peculiar  indecency  in  thrusting  private  exercises 

of    so   personal  and    sacred  a   character   on   the 

notice  of  onlookers.      This  instance  of  Pharisaic 

ostentation  outdoes  those  which  have  been  already 

rebuked  by  Christ.      It  was  really  a  new  thing, 

even  in  Jewish  hypocrisy.      More  than  one  of  the 

See  isa.  iviii.    old  propliets  had  chastised  the  insincerity  of  public 

5-14 ;  andper-  fasts  for  siu,  wliich  wcrc  not  accompanied  by  any 

iT{d.  ver.^5*).  reform  of  manners  or  any  '  fruits  meet  for  repent- 

Ec^ius!  ixxiv.  ance.'      But  there  is  no  earlier  trace  in  Hebrew 

literature  of  men  wlio  took  care  to  call  attention 

to  the  fact  that  they  either  were,  or  affected  to 

be,    keeping   a   private   fast,   by   the    studiously 

disfigured  and  neglected  aspect  of  their  persons. 

To  make  believe   that   one   is   deeply   exercised 

about  one's  sins,  and  have  an  eye  all  the  while 


2f3. 


Fasting.  237 

to  what  people  will  say  about  such  eminent  god-      i'art  n. 
liness,  betrays  a  singularly  hardened  or  besotted       third 

,.     .  ,  APPLICATION. 

religious  nature. 

But  Jesus  is  hardly  content,  in  this  third  in- 
stance, to  apply  His  law  of  secrecy  in  worship,  in 
precisely  the  same  way  as  in  the  two  previous 
instances.  He  does  not  say,  merely,  When  thou 
fastest,  enter  into  thy  closet,  and  fast  in  secret 
before  thy  Father  :  but  He  bids  us  positively 
conceal  all  traces  and  sims  of  fastini^  before  we 
return  to  the  society  of  our  fellows.  '  Anoint 
thine  head,  and  wash  thy  face,'  must  mean :  Be 
careful  to  observe  the  ordinary  rules  of  social 
life,  and  to  assume  before  others  your  customary 
aspect  of  cheerfulness.  The  heart  may  be  heavy 
enouoii  throuG^h  that  bitterness  of  sin  within  it 
which  is  known  to  none  else  ;  and  in  the 
secret  exercises  through  which  we  are  forced  to 
pass  in  our  solitary  hours,  the  body,  sympathizing 
with  the  spirit,  may  refuse  its  pleasant  food  to 
eat  the  bread  of  tears  :  no  matter  ;  such  painful  Ps.  ixxj:.  c. 
self-scrutiny  and  mortification  of  secret  lust  is  too 
much  out  of  harmony  with  the  buoyant  attitude  of 
normal  and  healthy  christian  life  to  be  obtruded 
by  any  visible  token  upon  the  attention  of 
our  brethren.  We  are  not  called  as  a  saved 
society  to  sorrow,  but  to  gladness.      Such  inward 


238  llie  Laws  of  the,  Kingdom. 

PART  II.  mourning  as  calls  for  a  fast  is  characteristically 
THIRD  an  exceptional  personal  thing  which  comes  of  the 
APPLICATION.  ^^-^  ^^  ^l^g  individual  heart.  It  has  no  business 
to  throw  its  black  shadow  across  the  souls  that 
have  been  redeemed  for  joy.  It  is  due  to  the 
comfort  of  Christians  whose  inner  life  is  better 
than  our  own,  due  to  the  courtesies  dictated 
by  unselfish  regard  for  others,  and  due  to  the 
Lord  of  Gladness  Himself,  that  he  who  for  his 
sins  must  fast  in  secret  should  at  least  come  forth 
with  every  trace  of  tears  washed  off,  and  no  ill- 
favoured  downcast  look  to  mar  the  cheerfulness 
of  the  outside  world.  Few  people  now-a-days 
are  given  to  a  literal  fasting  ;  yet  so  long  as 
religious  life  must  have  its  side  of  austerity  and 
gloom,  so  long  will  there  be  good  people  who  sin 
against  this  law.  Some  Christians  have  always 
been  found  to  betray  their  prevailing  seriousness 
by  sour  visages,  whining  tones,  or  meekly  melan- 
choly eyes.  Unless  such  trappings  of  an  unat- 
tractive piety  are  falsely  assumed,  we  dare  not 
say  that  Christians  of  this  cJass  are  the  modern 
representatives  of  the  sad-countenanced  men  whom 
our  Lord  condemned.  But  we  may  say,  that  they 
have  not  laid  to  heart  the  principle  of  llis  law 
which  requires  that  penitential  grief  should  be 
kept  to  oneself  and  to  God.      So  far  from  affecting 


Fasting.  239 

a  misery  you  do  not  feel,  or  parading  in  society  part  n. 
the  religious  melancholy  which  you  think  sits  third 
well  on  the  devout,  you  ought  to  conceal  such 
grief  when  it  has  become  inevitable,  lest  it  make 
discord  with  that  note  of  joy  to  which  all  godly 
life  has  now  been  more  than  ever  set.  That  is  a 
reasonable  violence,  which  a  good  man  does  to  his 
private  feelings  when  he  restrains  the  utterance 
of  religious  depression,  lest  he  should  oppress 
without  cause  some  heart  which  God  hath  not 
made  sad,  or  check  the  smile  which  God  has  put 
on  childhood's  lips,  or  asperse  the  joy  of  Christ's 
redeemed  by  making  earth  a  cloudier,  sadder 
place  than  it  needs  to  be.  God  knows,  it  is  sad 
enough  and  cloudy  enough  at  the  best ;  let  the 
Christian  keep  his  sorrow,  with  his  fasting,  to 
himself,  but  hold  it  for  a  christian  duty  to  shed 
abroad  wherever  he  goes  the  '  great  joy '  which 
of  right  belongs  to  the  '  glad  tidings '  of  our  Luke  ii.  lo. 
salvation. 


THE  END. 


MCKRAT  AND  GIBB,  EDINBURGH, 
TRINTERS  TO  HER  MAJESTY'S  STATIONER!  OFFICK. 


Date  Due 

J;  2  r  ■; 

! 

1 

:,-<l'l*lWwWWOBHJ^ 

, 

^ 

f) 

